Colchester United head coach John McGreal warns his side will have to be "on their mettle" against Ipswich Town

The U’s play host to their Championship neighbours at the Weston Homes Community Stadium, hoping to make it six wins out of six in pre-season.

McGreal spent five seasons as a player at Ipswich, making more than 150 league and cup appearances during his time at Portman Road and helping them win promotion to the Premier League, in 2000.

The U’s head coach admits it will be his side’s toughest test so far, as they build up to the new League Two campaign which kicks off on Saturday week.

McGreal said: “It’s going to be a tough game.

“Ipswich have made a few quality signings to go with the quality squad that they’ve got and we thank Mick (McCarthy) for coming across for the game.

“We will have to be on our mettle and keep trying to form the habits that we’ve been trying to form in the last three and a half weeks, over pre-season.

“We want to carry the run of momentum into the Ipswich game.

“We’ve had a run of results but it’s been about the fitness and the injury boys coming up.

“You see them coming up to speed and now these next two games coming up are going to be more competitive, so we’ll be looking for the boys to be putting in that extra work that they’ve been doing on the training pitch.”

Colchester supporters will get their first glimpse of defender Cole Kpekawa tonight since his permanent move to the club from Championship side Barnsley.

The former QPR youngster, who spent two months on loan at the U’s in the 2014-15 season, played for the opening 45 minutes of their 3-0 friendly win at National League South side Braintree Town, last weekend.

“Cole hasn’t played football for a long time,” said McGreal.

“He’s been a little bit isolated at Barnsley and he’s been ticking over, so we’ve got a lot of work into him in the first four or five days he’s been here.

“He got in a good 45 minutes at centre-back which is what he needs just to find his feet again.”