The U's-letter: Issue #15

The newsletter returns after a dismal festive period

It’s been a while since we dropped a U’s-letter into your inbox. In fact, by a happy accident, it coincided with the whole of what turned into a truly abject festive period for United. Luckily, due to my (Jules) absence on the other side of the world, no one was forced to review the games in written form on top of all the podcasting the boys have been doing - the quality of which has far exceeded what we’ve seen on the pitch.

I landed back in England after a 30 hour journey, cut off from all internet, fully expecting a corner flag post on X (great stuff on there) announcing that we’d parted ways with Garry Monk. That Bristol Rovers game, a huge six-pointer, was surely one too far for a guy who has the second-worst win percentage ratio of any Cambridge United manager ever. And that’s nearly a full 10 months into his time here, not an unreasonable sample size.

But that wasn’t the case. For the second time this season, the board released a statement backing Monk. I can’t say I find any reason to agree with it as a decision, and have next to no confidence that despite half a season left we will be able to make up the now 8 point gap to safety.

So, welcome back!

📰 News From The U’s 📰

• If somehow you hadn’t seen by now, the club have released a second statement of the season backing Monk. Plenty of discussion about that on the latest pod, which is linked above.

• Loanees Vicente Reyes and Connor O’Riordan have returned to their parent clubs. Sounds like Reyes returning was not our choice, according to Monk, but he’d lost his place in the squad anyway. Chance for improvements in the January market.

• In the other direction, we’ve recalled Glenn McConnell from loan, I assume so we have a chance of filling the bench if Saturday’s game at Blackpool goes ahead.

• There’s a Cambridge United app now, for some reason? It looks decent to be fair.

• An interesting series of events in partnership with the Uni on the Language of Football have been announced.

🧐 View From The Away End 🧐

Bristol Rovers

Talking Gas Podcast

Massive win for us in the end, a huge three points. It was a gritty away performance - it was never going to be easy in a game like that, it was always going to be a scrappy game. It was really important we got the first goal, really good team goal from our point of view, happy for Luke Thomas to get the goal because he was weirdly frozen out under Matt Taylor and that was his first league goal of the season so delighted for him.

Overall can’t really fault us, the defence did well to deal with all the crosses and long balls into the box. We did get a little bit lucky, a few close moments where I thought you might have scored, but in the end a really big win - and really we should have had a second, a dodgy offside call and hitting the post late on too.

FANCY BEATING US AT EFL FANTASY? LINK BELOW 👇

🔢 Stats Corner 🔢

• Blackpool have not won at home since September. You know what happens next.

• At the time of writing, 12 teams in League One have made at least one transfer in January so far. 6 of those being in the bottom 8, only ourselves and Shrewsbury in that pack are yet to sign a player this window - and if you count Jamal Blackman who they picked up on a short-term deal in December, it’s just us yet to add to our squad. While 2 have departed.

• As ever, these U’s-letters are the easiest because all I need to do is just point you in the direction of Ben G’s always brilliant Get Your Stats Right feature, linked below. To give you a taster, Ben looks at:

  • Our expected points compared to our actual points return.

  • How to fix it i.e. whether we first need to prioritise patching up our leaky defence or our blunt strike force to turn our still decent xG into actual goals.

  • And as a result, 5 players we should look at signing who would suit our system and make an instant impact, based on his own stats model.

🔮 Opposition Preview 🔮

Blackpool (A) - 15th place - Saturday 11th January

• Last 5 (all comps): DDDLD - They seem very uninspiring mid-table, some good points away from home at Wycombe and Birmingham but some disappointing ones at home to Stevenage and Shrews.

• Last time out: U’s 4-4 Blackpool, 24th August 2024. Great entertainment at the Abbey, little did we know it would be our only point until mid-October.

• Our H2H: P14, W4, L5, D5.

• Manager: Steve Bruce. Brucey in League One! What a treat. Took to life at Blackpool very quickly winning their first four, but form has fallen a bit since then. It’s a squad very much not built for him, so it’ll be interesting to see what they do in January.

• One to watch: Kyle Joseph. Having a good year up top and scored against us at the Abbey back in August.

• Former U’s players: Hayden Coulson.

🏟️ Under The Other Stands 🏟️

• A lot to catch up on here, but some headlines from our end of the division: the bottom four is starting to be cut adrift with a 5 point gap between 20th and 19th now. We were the only team down there to not pick up a single point over the festive period.

• Shrews did the best of the lot, only losing one and picking up six points. They’re going to fight hard under Ainsworth.

• Elsewhere, Birmingham are two points clear with two games in hand and asserting the sort of authority we expected they would. Worth reminding you we still have to play them twice.

• Noel Hunt is doing a remarkable job at Reading after taking over from Ruben Selles, winning three in a row (including against us) over Christmas, amidst all the off-pitch turmoil at the club still raging on.

🕺 What’s Spinning? 🕺

MJ Lenderman’s latest album has been the soundtrack to all the driving on my trip away:

Thanks for reading this week’s U’s-letter. Send us any comments or suggestions to include in next week’s issue to: hello@undertheabbeystand.com