The U's-letter: Issue #9
What a difference a week makes!
Well, well, well. As Michael Corleone once said: “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in".
There must be no better encapsulation for how Garry Monk is feeling this week than those now infamous words uttered by Al Pacino. After two games and two wins so far on what was rightfully billed as a defining week in both our season and Monk’s career at the U’s, he will be beyond happy with his players. Their level of commitment, dedication, and grit in both performances have to be the new benchmark in what this Cambridge United side needs to be if we have any chance of staying up.
And, well, what a difference a week makes. Suddenly it’s just the four points off safety, and the opportunity on Saturday at home to a winless Burton to narrow that gap even further. The deflections and ricochets landing in the net showed us that the little bit of luck we were lacking might be finally starting to turn our way.
Perhaps more importantly than anything, what Stevenage showed was a togetherness still very much exists at United. Monk changed game plans and approach, and showed his skill as a coach in doing so, both being executed perfectly. The appreciation from the travelling fans at Stevenage was obvious. The celebrations from the players showed what it means to them. We’re far from dead and buried, we’re alive and kicking.
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📰 News From The U’s 📰
The club are looking to set up a Supporters Group for Ethnic Minorities and the Global Majority, led by fan Kwami Canacoo.
The Women’s Team are through to the quarter final of the FA WNL Plate, and face AFC Bournemouth for a place in the last four.
✍️ At The Match ✍️
U’s 2-0 Wigan
Written by Owen Kiernan. Subscribe to The Antler to read the report in full and receive regular match reports in your inbox.
Full disclosure: I wasn’t at the game on Saturday. Work had me travelling back from Amsterdam so I wasn’t able to attend. It’s typical isn’t it?
In light of that shocking revelation you won’t find any of the usual cutting edge analysis here other than to say from what I heard and briefly saw in the highlights United looked pretty decent. Maybe it’s all starting to come together. Maybe Korey Smith is actually good. Maybe we’ll stay up this season… (okay that’s probably too big an ask).
We’ve known that we’re not an especially bad team, just one riddled with a lack of confidence and some deadly mistakes in us. We know that Monk isn’t an especially bad manager, just one who’s trying to impose an attractive style of football on a group of players wildly unsuited to it. We know we’ve been unlucky with injuries, we know our summer targets mostly signed elsewhere. We know now that when we play well, keep our focus for the full 90+ minutes, when we take our chances, that we can beat some of the better teams in the division. Who knows, maybe this is a one-off, our solitary win of the season against the odds, but I think the tide might be starting to turn…
Stevenage 0-2 U’s
Written by Owen Kiernan. Subscribe to The Antler to read the report in full and receive regular match reports in your inbox.
Two in two! Two weeks ago I didn't think we'd be able to win two games all season, let alone against opponents such as Wigan and Stevenage.
I guess firstly credit must go to Garry Monk. I've changed my mind on Monk more times than he's switched up defences, but he seems to have got things to click now. Credit also to the board to sticking with him, in the face of some fairly strongly worded arguments (not least mine) against keeping him in charge.
Credit due also to the players, who’ve bucked their ideas up and are starting to show that they’re a League One side who can compete on this stage. I’ve worried before that relegation will be terminal for our ambitions, so this showing starts to fill me with a bit of confidence.
My mate Alan pointed out to me that at no point during the game did we have more than two outfield players on the pitch that weren’t a part of last seasons squad. If anything shows the lack of depth in the squad Monk has to work with then it’s that. Injuries are the main reason for that stat, but we’d also do well to remember that we’re not able to bring in an entire new squad every summer due to our finances. Smith has come in for a tonne of criticism from me, a lot of it deserved, some of it not, but over the past few games has really started to show his class. Nlundulu I remain less convinced about, but he’s running and trying hard and he’s been rewarded with a couple of goals already. We know he wasn’t our first choice #9, but he’s wearing the shirt so we might as well back him whilst he’s here. Worst case, he’s crap and we send him back to Bolton in January, Best case, he scores tonnes of goals between now and Xmas and Bolton recall him anyway.
I don’t think anyone had a bad game on Tuesday, but special shoutouts must go to a few of them: Okedina, finally starting to come of age. He’s one of our longest serving players now and has made over 100 appearances. It doesn’t feel like it sometimes, and he’s had ups and downs but has reacted to being placed on the transfer list in the summer with professionalism. His reaction to his last ditch tackle on Tuesday was a joy to see, celebrating it like he’d scored a winner. Kachunga had a decent game (and looks pretty cool in his long-sleeved shirt) and although he was the weaker of the three forwards Tuesday, he still put in a shift. Smith I mentioned above, Morrison led the backline with all his years of experience and made sure we were wise to Stevenage’s tricks.
The last thing to mention is the United fans. I don’t get to many away games, but the atmosphere on Tuesday was incredible. We didn’t rise to the provocations from Stevenage’s idiot fans, the atmosphere was much better than last season. We sang from kick-off to the final whistle, supported the team and showed we were United, and it was actually a somewhat pleasant experience, which isn’t something you usually say about a night in Stevenage.
🧐 View From The Away End 🧐
Wigan Athletic
From the Progress With Unity podcast
Our trip to Cambridge ended up pretty much how I imagined it would, going to a side that hasn't won a game all season, one that we have struggled against in recent encounters and considering we were unbeaten in seven without conceding, the proverbial banana skin.
Cambridge came out of the blocks and got at us in the early stages of the game and we just couldn't cope with it, robust rather than over physical was enough to throw us completely off our game and we should have been four down after 25 minutes. We needed someone to stand up and compete, unfortunately for us, nobody did.
Cambridge looked a side fighting for their manager, restricted us to very little in the final third in both halves and although neither mustered serious efforts in the second half, I thought the better team won on the day.
Stevenage FC
An extremely disappointing 2-0 defeat on Tuesday. We were really shocked by our performance to be honest. We’d seen some great stuff of late, especially at Mansfield on Saturday and even at Peterborough the week before when we really should’ve got something, but it couldn’t have been further away from that. It was like we were watching a different team.
I think we’ve got to give a lot of credit to yourselves on that, United came out at 100mph from the first minute. It caught us off stride and we couldn’t match that intensity. It could have been that the team put so much in to get the first away win at Mansfield that they were a bit out on their feet.
Once you got 1-0 up it felt like we were just chasing the game. That was our worst performance of the season, but I think you should be proud of how you controlled it from the start, we don’t allow a lot of teams to do that to us especially at home.
FANCY BEATING US AT EFL FANTASY? LINK BELOW 👇
🔢 Stats Corner 🔢
The best place to get your stats this week is the Mailbag pod we did with Ben Griffis, the UTAS resident statistician. There’s great stuff in there on the U’s in general, the relegation battle, Dan Nlundulu and Korey Smith, amongst other great stuff. Listen wherever you get your pods:
Per Fotmob, we had 33% possession to Wigan’s 67% on Saturday, and 39% to Stevenage’s 61% on Tuesday. Different gameplan.
Defeat to Newport made it five defeats in a row for Gillingham for the first time since January 2023, which was under Neil Harris. Bad looks for two ex-United managers.
Every team in the EFL has been involved in a game where 4 or more goals have been scored, with the exception of four teams: Tranmere, Swansea, Exeter and Stevenage.
🔮 Opposition Preview 🔮
Burton Albion (H) - Saturday 26th October
Last 5 (all comps): LLLLL - It won’t have escaped anyone that Burton are now the only winless team in the EFL. Winless into late October, imagine that…
Last time out: U’s 0-0 Burton, 27th January 2024 - A pretty listless home draw under Harris, which we probably didn’t do quite enough to win.
Our H2H: P9, W4, L3, D2. Again, worth mentioning this is just in the Football League, I couldn’t find stats including our non-league meetings which would have inflated this number. Mixed record against this lot, and we haven’t beaten them since that crazy 4-3 win at the Abbey in August 2022.
Manager: No-one. Mark Robinson was sacked on Wednesday after their winless start to the season, and they’ll go into Saturday as unpredictable as they come. Couldn’t have just waited one more game lads?
One to watch: Danilo Orsi. Signed after a brilliant promotion season with Crawley in League Two, Orsi has already scored 5 in 11 in the league despite their poor start.
Former U’s players: Not that I can see.
🏟️ Under The Other Stands 🏟️
The U’s, Wycombe, Birmingham and Reading were the four teams to win both their Saturday and Tuesday games, and all have what you might call ‘favourable’ fixtures to make it nine from nine.
In an early incarnation of what we’ll end up calling Relegation Watch, Shrewsbury lost twice, Crawley lost 4-1 at Reading before thumping Lincoln 3-0 at home, and Burton Albion as you’ve already read are still winless, losing both their games too.
Any hope we had of Birmingham being another big fish to be trapped in League One for a few years look extinguished as they ominously keep winning and sit top.
💻 On The Web 💻
A bit further afield than usual, but the BBC Sport write-up on the story of Shakhtar ahead of their game against Arsenal on Tuesday was really eye-opening.
🕺 What’s Spinning? 🕺
Did someone say new Kylie record? That’s how to celebrate a successful week!
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