Colchester United head coach John McGreal says they are trying to bring in "one or two" loanees before the transfer window closes tomorrow night.

The U's are looking to add to their squad ahead of the deadline, which is at 11pm tomorrow.

McGreal was speaking in the wake of Colchester's 1-0 defeat at Crawley Town in their opening Checkatrade Trophy Group E match tonight.

McGreal said: "We're trying to do things and when you look at the bench tonight, we're a little bit thin.

"We're trying to get one or two bodies in and if that works, then great.

"But if it doesn't we know what we've got; we've got a great under-21 group to dip into so we'll wait and see what happens.

"We're looking at loans and Tony (Humes), Steve McCall, Iain Moody and Robbie Cowling have been active over the last 48 hours and hopefully we can get one or two over."

James Collins' header condemned Colchester to defeat at Crawley, with Denny Johnstone's shot tipped onto the bar by keeper Mitchell Beeney in the second half the closest they came to an equaliser.

McGreal said: "I'm disappointed to come away with the loss, especially in the second half.

"In the first half, we worked on trying to get the ball back and closing down which I thought we did quite well but didn't really execute it when we got in the final third.

"A little bit of sloppiness came into our play and their play in the final third and they capitalised on that to go 1-0 up.

"We dominated the second half up until the final third.

"There are little bits to work on but we've made changes and I thought that the boys who came in put in an excellent performance and it was fantastic for the two young boys (Diaz Wright and Dexter Peter) who made their debut."