The U’s come to Brunton Park with the current best away from in the division, having won their last five league trips on the road.
And a busy January window has added depth and strength to a squad that is now climbing the table and consistently picking up good results.
“They’re up there for form over the last 10 games even though they’ve drawn a few recently, and that’s why the manager got the manager of the month award last month,” manager Paul Simpson said.
“It’s going to be a tough game, we know that. The additions they brought in last month have certainly improved them, and we know we’ve got to be right.
“We’ve got to be absolutely bang on in every area, and that includes attitude and work rate. The physical output and technical ability have to be much better and then we’ll be giving ourselves a real chance against a good side.”
“There is a lot to be wary of because, like I say, they are a good side,” he continued. “They have some very good players and they’re working hard as a team, and they’ve built up some momentum.
“They compete, they win second balls, and those are the basics that don’t require any ability. We have to get back to doing them ourselves and hopefully our ability will come through from that.
“For Colchester, their position in the league table at the moment, probably isn’t a reflection of the group that they've got now.
“They've got a very good, effective group of players who are on a brilliant run. Particularly away from home they're on probably the best run they've had for a long time.
“What we've got to do is match them, simple as that. We believe that we're good side when we do things properly and hopefully we're able to show our proper selves on a Saturday afternoon.
“Well, they're a team that's in a similar position to what we were last season when I came here, in that they get a result.
“Things start to go their way, there’s momentum, and they're picking up results now, which they weren't doing. I'm sure they had many games in the first part of the season where they played well but got nothing out of it.
“Now they're actually playing well, they're all working extremely hard, they're competitive, they've got strikers who cause problems in Akinde, in Hopper, in Jay. These are good players.
“And we know we've got to be right. But we also know that we've got players who on their day can cause lots of problems, can cause any team in our league an issue.
“And the truth of it is we've just got to get back to doing what we've been doing for the most part of the season. And that may sound like a broken record. I've probably said it a few times, but that's the truth of it, we just need to get what we have been doing.”
And the players have been reminded that they haven’t got to where they are this season without that mix of real ability, talent and sheer hard work.
“You don’t get to third in the table at this stage if you don’t have ability,” the gaffer agreed. “There’s a togetherness about the group and there’s a spirit in there that has helped them to do this.
“Everything you talk about in teams that do well has been there, we’ve seen it. Now we have to do it for the next 15 games.
“All the preparation has been right going into Saturday and we have to hope that the team is fresh enough and knowledgeable enough to go and get a result.
“And we obviously want the goals to come back, but it’s not something I’m panicking about.
“We’ve gone too long now without getting a goal and if we keep doing the right things, which we did at Wimbledon, we’ll be fine.
“We didn’t get it right against Mansfield, but even then we still had opportunities to get goals or create scoring chances.
“That came down to needing to be better with our decision making or by being more clinical. What I’m hoping is that those goals that we know are in us have been saved up.
“We can’t change these last three games, it’s about what happens in the next 15, starting at Colchester.”