Joe Taylor: Game time paying off in goals for on-loan Colchester forward
- Published
Joe Taylor was loaned to Colchester over the summer after moving from Peterborough to Luton in January
Colchester United forward Joe Taylor is backing himself to score "a few more" this season after reaching the 10-goal mark for the League Two club.
The 21-year-old, who is on loan from Luton, is the first U's player to reach double figures for nine seasons.
He agreed the switch to the Essex club after playing at Wembley as the Hatters won promotion to the Premier League.
"I'm not naive. If Luton did go up, I was already preparing to go out on loan," he told BBC Essex Sport.
"Obviously I was going to come back in pre-season and give it my all, give myself the best opportunity of getting in the side, but I knew deep down that I needed to get out and play games before I could commit to something like the Premier League."
Taylor's 10th of the season came in their midweek home defeat by Crawley - a result which left Matthew Etherington's side 20th in the table.
And there will be even more onus on him now that Samason Tovide has been ruled out for two to three months because of an ankle ligament injury.
"For me, it's a massive milestone in my first full season in professional football and I feel like I could potentially have had more," he said.
"With just over half the season left, I back myself to score a few more. I joined here wanting game time and I feel I've had that in abundance - I've not had regular game time like this in my whole career so far."
Taylor made six appearances for the Hatters last season and described their win over Coventry in the play-off final at Wembley, in which he scored one of their penalties in a shoot-out, as "the best day of my life".
He continued: "It was about time Luton went up because they'd been in or around it for a couple of years."
Taylor insisted, however, that leaving the Premier League for a season in the fourth tier had not involved any change of mindset on his part.
"You've just got to go out every week and work your hardest, do what you're good at and eventually results will come - and personal milestones as well," he said.
"I don't think it's a shift in mentality. It's just a game of football at the end of the day, whether it's at the top or the bottom, whether we're struggling or whether we're flying."
Colchester are away to second-placed Wrexham on Saturday before playing their final game before Christmas at home to Salford City on 22 December.