Colchester United recruitment guru Steve Ball on January window

The U's are closing in on new faces to bolster their squad, ahead of an important second half of the season.

Colchester are hoping to add players ahead of their home clash with Rochdale at the JobServe Community Stadium, on Saturday.

Former Colchester player, coach and manager Steve Ball is now working at the club in a player recruitment role.

He has experience of being involved in transfer windows as a coach, a manager and now in his role in recruitment.

He believes there could be a large amount of transfer activity amongst EFL teams, this month.

Ball said: “I’d say this is the most volatile market where lots of teams want to act and Covid has played a part.

“The number of games and potential injuries has affected whether clubs will let players go, unless they can bring in players themselves.

“It’s a particularly volatile window and like all clubs, we’re probably trying to do our business early where we can get a head start when we can have the squad and cover in place.

“But it’s not necessarily going to be that easy, as we all know when there’s lots of negotiations and last-minute hitches and all of a sudden, players come up that we didn’t think would.

Scouting mission - Steve Ball says they could have to play a waiting game in this month's transfer window 

“Like in all windows, it’s a bit of a waiting game.

“There’s been six months plus of work gone into it and a lot of games have been watched by myself and the recruitment team – Joe Monks, Tony Humes, Jon De Souza, Alec Hodgkinson.

“We’ve put a lot of work into it and presented some targets to the first-team management.

“We’re looking to bring in a striker.

“I still maintain that we have the best striker in the division in Freddie (Sears).

“He’ll score goals given the service like he’s proving.

“But as a club, I feel we need to add to that as well.

“I really stand by that we recruited well in the summer, bringing in the players that we did.

“I still maintain that we’ve got one of the best quality squads in the division.

“If you look at our squad, on paper we’ve got a really experienced balance in the group with some great youngsters.

“What we’ve got is very, very good.

“I’m sure the fans and everybody else would look at additions maybe at the top end of the pitch and that’s our focus.

“There’s all sorts of options that we’ve presented."

Hot shot - Freddie Sears was one of Colchester's summer signings from Ipswich Town Picture: STEVE BRADING

Ball played his part in helping Colchester secure a number of experienced signings, last summer.

The 52-year-old returned to the U's in March following his departure as the club's first-team head coach.

He has clocked up the miles all over the UK over recent months watching numerous players and potential signings.

Ball says he has scouted a variety of players from numerous leagues, including promising talent from Premier League clubs.

“We’ve got a good system in the club where all of the games are watched and reported on and stats broken down from the games," said Ball.

“I’d like to think as a club we’ve got an advanced system where we do all we can to watch games and players.

Experience - Luke Chambers was one of several players to join Colchester United from Ipswich Town in the summer Picture: RICHARD BLAXALL

“A lot of my time is geared around Premiership under-23 teams.

“That’s a market that we should be really strong on, because of the gems you can pick up from there.

“It’s also very much EFL, League One and Two and then National League, South Conference, North Conference.

“It’s a whole range of games and we’ve also expanded a little bit to Ireland and Scotland.

“There’s lots of games watched and all bases covered.

“I spend three-quarters of my time on the motorway and there’s lots of travelling but that’s fine and all part of it.

“The split is one that as and when there’s games on during midweek, there’s ample opportunities to catch up on games online."