Town boss Mick McCarthy says he expects right-back Elliott Hewitt to remain on loan at Colchester for the rest of the season.
The 20-year-old, who has made 16 starts and has scored one goal since joining the League One side in October, extended his stay with the U’s for another month earlier today.
"He’s there really to the end of the season,” McCarthy said. "We’ve got a 24-hour recall on him, but he’s got Chambo in front of him, he’s got Jonny Parr in front of him and it’s unlikely I’ll call him back unless we have a really big problem and if he can help Colchester that’s great."
The Wales U21 international’s contract is up at the end of the season but McCarthy says it can be extended by a year if the club want to hang on to him: "We have an option on him, so it’s up but if we want to keep him then we can keep him.”
Joining Hewitt at Colchester is Jack Marriott, who McCarthy hopes will score the goals to keep the U’s in League One: "[Colchester manager] Tony Humes and myself spoke about Jack and I mentioned him to him when I took Freddie.
"I just thought he would be ideal for them if they fancied him, they knew all about him, of course. And they came back and asked if they could take him.
"Whilst I didn’t want to take him away from Woking, he’s done really well there, they were delighted with him, but I’ve always had the understanding that if we could get him to progress - and that’s the reason he went there - we could do it.
"Hopefully he can score the goals for Colchester and help keep them up.”