Cambridge Utd 1-0 Bolton

It was only 5 months ago when we last played Cambridge but that was at home in League 2. They went on to finish above us in 2nd and since then both teams have made a bunch of new signings.
Cambridge have had an average start to the League 1 season so it was slightly disconcerting when they beat high flying Burton Albion on Saturday 3 nil - until I saw that all 3 goals were own goals. Well one was a deflection.

Not sure I can predict this or any other game in this league - all the teams seem to be competitive, all the games seem to be tight and results can depend on a stroke of luck or the run of the ball, but...we have nothing to fear from Cambridge and reckon we can get a win at the Abbey.
I'm guessing 1 - 2.

Here's our last meeting - not Gilks finest moment TBH.

Cheers!

We can win this so 2-0 to the Wanderers backed by our amazing travelling fans.

We're still working out where this team fits in League 1 and it's difficult to tell when in our first four games we're both scoring (9) and conceding (7) for fun - and every game has been close and could have gone either way.
A lot of ifs and buts still remain and a win today would be a massive boost but I suspect it will be another nail biting struggle.

One thing is for sure - when the best 11 play it's been helluva entertaining and I expect that to continue.

wanderlust wrote:We're still working out where this team fits in League 1 and it's difficult to tell when in our first four games we're both scoring (9) and conceding (7) for fun - and every game has been close and could have gone either way.
A lot of ifs and buts still remain and a win today would be a massive boost but I suspect it will be another nail biting struggle.

One thing is for sure - when the best 11 play it's been helluva entertaining and I expect that to continue.

In fairness Wander, I think beating two of last seasons play off teams and throwing away the wins in our first two tells me we’ve got little to fear in this league. The fact that we haven’t even fully gelled yet as a team and hopefully will add even more firepower before the window closes fills me with confidence that we’ll stay one of the leading lights all season and hopefully promoted at the end of it?

Whitesince63 wrote:

In fairness Wander, I think beating two of last seasons play off teams and throwing away the wins in our first two tells me we’ve got little to fear in this league. The fact that we haven’t even fully gelled yet as a team and hopefully will add even more firepower before the window closes fills me with confidence that we’ll stay one of the leading lights all season and hopefully promoted at the end of it?

I hope so although "not having gelled yet" is applicable to all the teams and we salvaged a lucky draw in the final minute so we aren't exactly blowing teams away.
I'm still undecided but we'll learn a bit more today against a team with a smaller budget yet finished above us in League 2 because if we are to have any pretentions about promotion this is a game we should win comfortably compared to the top teams we have yet to play.

Not looking too good so far a goal down at HT and sounds like we’re lucky it’s only that. I do think that since Lee went out of the side we’ve been much more open down the middle and for all Sheehan’s undoubted forward momentum it seems to have destabilised the side. Hopefully we’ll pick it up in the second half and at least level the match.

Two problems today.

1. Way too much backwards and sideways passing.
2. Santos ends up with too much ball time - the so-called creative players ahead of him should have the responsibility to start the move not Santos.

I am the last to suggest hoof it but with 5 minutes to go and a goal down we were still playing across the back line - I dunno.

It's a small set back but we were still the better side so onwards to the next game.

Whilst I still say that we're still trying to work out what level the team is at as regards this league I'm coming to the conclusion that every game we play will be very difficult and that it will come down to the performances we put in.
Today there were a few off the pace and that was decisive in the end. Dapo in particular was bullied (by Tracey) and had no answer to his power and pace. And some of the passing was appalling - several players being guilty.
As was mentioned in the chatroom and as Terence points out we had loads of possession but it was at the back, however whilst we'd like the midfielders to  control the ball and initiate moves they were involved in a battle which they were losing a lot of the time and on the occasions they had the ball were unable to do anything constructive with it - hence it going back to Santos et al.
On the evidence so far, we look like a mid table team that should be able to compete in every game - and every game will be a battle as there are no mugs in this division.

I can't comment on the actual performance as I only caught the last ten minutes of the game on Portal so I'll take lusty and other's words for it that we were poor in several areas. However, I still believe we're playing with more team spirit and cohesion than we've seen in the last several years and in general things are still on the way up rather than down. Every team has the occasional bad day at the office and it seems yesterday was ours. What matters now is how they respond to it and how quickly the things that went wrong are put right.

luckyPeterpiper wrote: I still believe we're playing with more team spirit and cohesion than we've seen in the last several years and in general things are still on the way up rather than down. Every team has the occasional bad day at the office and it seems yesterday was ours. What matters now is how they respond to it and how quickly the things that went wrong are put right.

Quite right Peter. Although there wasn't much cohesion yesterday. On Saturday.

We ain't gonna win them all.
And to play at the intensity we do it's gonna be hard to do that week in week out. It's a long season...
If that's the kind of game we lose I'm happy with what we put into it. Look at the way we used to lose, where our players would look clueless and we had nothing about us in the past and we would create no chances.