COLCHESTER United head coach Steve Ball says their home form this season will be a crucial to their hopes of League Two success.

The U’s are preparing to host Bolton Wanderers in a behind closed doors fixture tomorrow, their first game at the JobServe Community Stadium of the new campaign.

It will be Ball’s first home game in charge since his appointment as U’s boss, earlier this summer.

And the U’s head coach knows that their form on home territory will be vital in determining what they can achieve, in the 2020-21 season.

Ball said: “We can’t wait to play at home.

“For the Exeter game (in the play-offs last season), it was a brand new thing.

“We played the pre-season games at home though and this just feels like a proper home match.

“It’s against a big club; you couldn’t wish for a better club to play in a home match and I’m sure we’ll be generating our own atmosphere on Saturday, for sure.

“The home form is really important.

“I don’t know what the exact stats are but we’d have been up there in our division over the last few seasons, on our home form.

“Then it’s about picking up points away which we did (at Bradford) so we’re looking to get that balance right.

“Let’s make last weekend’s away point a great point with a win on Saturday.”

Ball says they have been working hard on their finishing in training this week, ahead of the Bolton game.

Colchester have netted one goal in their opening three games so far but have shown plenty of promising approach play, something boss Ball wants them now to turn into goals.

“We’ve done sessions all week linked to getting that end product in the final third,” he said.

“I think we’re getting there and we showed even against Bradford that we got into some lovely areas.

“We’re getting there but now it’s a case of us getting those goals.

“It’s early season and there have been some new players involved as well, getting to know each other, are they going to pass, are they going to shoot, are they going to wait?

“It needs a bit of fine tuning but I know that we have the quality to score goals.

“I’m happy so far and even in the games against Reading and Pompey which we lost, there were some really nice signs.

“The good thing at Bradford was a clean sheet and we showed both sides of it.

“All of the boys are in a really good place, at the minute.”