John McGreal has set his sights on Carabao Cup progression tonight – and finally ending Colchester United’s losing run in the competition.

The U’s travel to play fellow League Two side Cheltenham Town aiming to maintain their encouraging start to the new campaign with another victory.

Colchester have not fared well in the league cup over recent years, having been knocked out at the first-round stage in each of the last seven seasons.

But head coach McGreal wants to change that this year and see his U’s side make progress in the tournament.

McGreal said: “It would be great to have a cup run, this season and we’ve said that to the boys.

“It’s one where we’ll be trying to win a game of football.

“The last two league cup games we’ve had have been fairly difficult, with Brighton away and then Aston Villa at home and now again, we have a very difficult trip to play Cheltenham.

“I’m sure that they’ll be smarting (from their defeat at Tranmere Rovers at the weekend) and I’m sure they’ll see (playing) us at home as an opportunity to get through to the next round, as well.

“I expect a good game and one that we’ll be trying to win.

“We all want to win games of football and it just so happens now that we’ve got a cup match.”

McGreal could make changes to his side for the trip to Whaddon Road, with the likes of Mikael Mandron and Brandon Comley pushing for their first starts of the new campaign.

“We have a strong squad – we made two changes (against Port Vale) and you could see that the boys who came in settled in really well,” said McGreal.

“The big thing for me as coach is knowing that the boys have had a good pre-season and although we’re only two games in, we know that if called upon they can come in and perform.”