Colchester United attacker Sammie Szmodics injured in training

The 23-year-old was forced to sit out his first League Two game of the season, after suffering a blow to his leg in the build-up to the game at the Globe Arena.

There had initially been fears about the injury after it had occurred in the same place as where Szmodics' suffered a broken leg in a game at Crewe Alexandra back in March, 2017.

But after undergoing an X-ray, it was shown the former Colchester academy youngster had not suffered a serious injury.

Colchester head coach John McGreal said: “Szmods didn’t make it – he took a crack in training on Tuesday.

“He felt it a little bit on Thursday and then had to go for an X-ray on Friday.

“The X-ray is all clear and it’s literally on the same spot as where he had the break 18 months or so.

“It’s all clear – it’s soft tissue which is good but Sam just felt that he wasn’t right.

“We had a ready-made replacement in Courtney (Senior) and he got his goal.”

Meanwhile, boss McGreal has revealed that Colchester's players used other teams' past results at Morecambe as extra motivation yesterday.

The U's claimed their first-ever league win at the venue after securing a 1-0 victory, thanks to Courtney Senior's impressive goal.

The victory lifted Colchester up to fifth in the table and just two points adrift of the automatic promotion places, ahead of their trip to play Grimsby Town on Tuesday night.

“In our presentation (on Friday), we looked at the teams that had won at Morecambe this season like Exeter, Oldham and Tranmere Rovers," said McGreal.

“They’ve all won here and they’ll all have aspirations to get into the play-offs and in and around that top seven.

“That’s all our talk has been – can we go back to back but also, if we want to try and be a good team we will have to ride our luck which every team in this division needs to do.

“It’s division two and we’re not always going to be on it for 90 minutes.

“We’ve been able to do it but it was down to great defending, as well."