Matty Etherington would love to end a tough week with FA Cup success at Shrewsbury on Saturday.

The 42-year-old has been reinstated as interim head coach at Colchester United, having been stood down for their 1-0 win at Accrington Stanley due to a contract dispute with former club Crawley Town.

And he admitted it was a relief to have the matter resolved ahead of their first-round tie.

"It's not been an easy week, trials and tribulations, but we're here now," he said.

"All I want to do is come to work, get on the grass with the players, get preparing for another really big fixture for the club, another away fixture, but a fixture we can go into with confidence.

"It's the FA Cup, a competition I hold dearly having played in two finals myself [for West Ham in 2006 and Stoke in 2011].

"I really value the competition, I was brought up on it as a kid, watching the team buses going to Wembley, the helicopters overhead filming them on match day.

"It's a great tradition and I think we should give it the respect it deserves."

Having led U's to victory at Grimsby, Etherington was forced to sit back and watch last weekend's action.

But he praised his players and staff for the way they all handled the disruption.

"I can't speak highly enough of them. We only found out on Friday evening, when we were about an hour away from the hotel," he added.

"It was difficult, I had to sit the players down, explain the situation, speak to Connor Hall privately and explain the situation.

"It's the last thing you need, 16-18 hours before kick-off, but it was dealt with in the right way, the players were extremely professional, the staff were absolutely amazing and we stuck together and got on with it.

"Thankfully we got three points. That was the most important thing, regardless of what was going on around it, was the players sticking together and really galvanising each other, sticking together as a group and putting in a performance that was worthy of that.

"I think you could see that out on the pitch, in both games but especially towards the end against Accrington when they were throwing everything at us, the boys stood up to it.

"Hopefully now that will give them a lot of confidence, belief and momentum moving forward.

"It was hard, I'm not going to lie, it was very hard. I was just really pleased the boys got the result, a much-needed result and a really good week.

"They deserved that, then it was just about having a bit of time off, after the craziness of the week, and reflecting and resetting, ready to go again for Shrewsbury."

*Matty Etherington was walking to BBC Essex.