Colchester United head coach Danny Cowley says brother Nicky will remain seated in the stands during games.

U's are unbeaten in their last seven matches in all competitions - with clean sheets in their last four - and welcome Newport County to the JobServe Community Stadium this weekend.

And the boss will continue to go it alone on the touchline while his assistant enjoys a 'helicopter view' of the action.

He said: "I went up there for the game against Salford, then Nicky went up there.

"It does give you an advantage from a tactical viewpoint and we have the live feed so if we need to, in-game, we can watch back.

"Nicky goes up there with our analyst and it's been working well. Nicky has cut fourth officials out of his life.

"You see me with the earpiece in, it just allows us to communicate.

"You get that helicopter view which from a tactical perspective is so important.

"When we're winning and doing well we tend to not change too much so long may it continue."

Having less bodies at pitchside is another bonus, with Cowley feeling more could be done and citing the German league as a good example.

He added: "It's so difficult to do your work at pitchside, we have all these new laws around where we can stand, where we can't stand in the technical area.

"It just makes it so difficult. I do think the FA need to look at this really.

"We're paid to do our job and help and support our team. I think they could put some rules in place.

"In the Bundesliga the dugouts are 10 metres either side of the halfway line and the fourth official is then on the halfway line.

"But there's distance between the two dugouts and the fourth official, it's so much cleaner. I understand why they want to tidy up the technical areas.

"They have to remember a lot of older stadiums have old-fashioned dugouts."

Cowley has certainly seen some changes during his time in football and feels things could run more smoothly.

He said: "Back in the day, watching my dad play, there was no subs, then there was one sub, then two subs.

"We have the same dugouts and now we can have as many as nine subs.

"They want to watch the game as well, we have to stand so we're not in their way, because we want the subs to watch the game so they can impact it when called upon.

"So, it needs to be looked at, because it's crazy at the moment.

"I think you would significantly reduce the number of coaches and managers getting booked, you would really tidy up the game. And this is surely what we want.

"It's about the game. We could tidy up these rules and make it so much better for everybody involved."