Colchester United manager Tony Humes intends to move quickly in his attempts to bolster his squad for next season.

Humes has already registered his interest in several players, as he moulds his team for the 2015-16 campaign.

The U’s boss has already stressed that he wants to keep together the nucleus of his squad that finished this season so strongly.

But also intends to add to his options and is keen to bring in more experienced players, to complement the club’s talented youngsters.

Humes is keen to wrap up some signings before Colchester report back for pre-season training, at the end of next month.

He said: “We’ll make early offers to the ones we know we want and see if we can get them sorted.

“We don’t want to be clinging on for July - we want to get them sorted by the time we come back for pre-season at the end of June.

“You have to go with a gut feeling of who you want first and you make the approaches and see what the interest is.

“Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be talking to players and seeing what’s available.

“Players have an obligation to try and get the best deal.

“We’ll see what the thoughts are of the ones that we’re interested in.

“If we can get one or two of them in early, that would be great.

“I think people see us as a progressive football club and hopefully we can bring the right characters in.

“I think we’re in a stronger position as a League One club and people can see how we’re moving forward.”

Humes admits that the picture may become clearer once the Football League play-offs have taken place.

The three respective play-off finals take place at Wembley over the forthcoming Bank Holiday weekend (May 23-25).

“There are so many players out there and the games haven’t finished yet,” added Humes.

“You still don’t know fully who’s going to become available.

“If you look at all four teams who’ve been involved in the play-offs, if they don’t go up then their circumstances change.”

For all of the latest Colchester United news, see the Daily Gazette.