Colchester defender Iandolo out for up to 12 weeks

Ellis Iandolo signed for Colchester from Swindon in 2023

Colchester United defender Ellis Iandolo will be out of action until October with a knee injury.

The 27-year-old was not involved in the pre-season 5-0 win at Dagenham and Redbridge on Tuesday.

Following that win, U's manager Danny Cowley told BBC Essex that Iandolo had damaged medial ligaments during training.

"We are all with Ellis, he's such an important player to us so that's a tough one for us to take," Cowley said.

"It was just an innocuous tackle in training on Friday and it's just opened up his knee, they are always hard to say but I would imagine he's out for 10 to 12 weeks."

Left-back Iandolo played 50 times for the U's in the 2024-25 campaign.

Cowley also had an update on the future of last season's top scorer Lyle Taylor.

"I think we are hopefully moving closer to getting something agreed," he said.

"Lyle is injured himself, from the injury that he did last year. We really missed him at the back end of last season.

"He is now in the final stages of his rehab and we are hoping he is going to be back on the grass at the end of this week.

"We're really hopeful we can get something which is agreeable for all parties."

Colchester kick off their League Two campaign at home to Tranmere Rovers on Saturday, 2 August.

You can listen to a full interview with Colchester boss Danny Cowley on BBC Sounds here.