Cambridge United: August 2010

Hello friends and I’m happy to bring you the first regular season report from my new Football Manager Story featuring Cambridge United.

Finally the opening day arrived and a good crowd of nearly 4,000 showed up to see what was in essence a brand new team taking the field for the game against Bath City. The fans were treated to some free flowing and entertaining football as left winger Karl Moore put on a great show  but for all his efforts and our dominant performance we could only manage a draw and had to rely on Bath’s Danny Webb to get our goal heading into his own net off a first half free kick.

My job advertisement for a new Assistant Manager finally paid off with the signing of Warren Neil who has been at QPR, Portsmouth and more recently Watford and will bring a wealth of experience to the coaching side of the club.

The next game took us to the south coast to play Eastbourne and we got off to a great start as the pace of N’Goma  proved too much for the Eastbourne back four with our striker being brought down in the box and coolly converting the ensuing  spot kick after 5 minutes. Sloppy defending allowed the home side a gift of an equalizer and poor finishing by us kept the score level at the half. Eastbourne started the second half more aggressively but we soon thwarted their attacks and we eventually regained the lead with Wootton heading in from a corner after replacing the injured Traore. Fofana who came on for the tired N’Goma led the charge in a counter attack that saw a swarm of Cambridge players challenge for Fofana’s cross which David Mcdermott reached first to make it 3-1 and kill the game off.

We were back at The Abbey Stadium for our next league encounter against York City and after some intense pressure we eventually took the lead as Karl Moore’s free kick was headed in the back of the net after 25 minutes. N’Goma was unlucky not to double the lead two minutes later when his thunderous shot rattled the cross bar. Moore however was causing York all kinds of problems and after a winning a free kick he curled the ball passed the York keeper to make it 2-0 just before half time. The second half was a much quieter affair until Fofana headed in from a Moore corner to top off a comfortable win in front of the 3,500 home fans.

Our next opponents were Forest Green who were lying in 18^th place when we arrived at the New Lawn Stadium. I thought this would be a good chance to rest some of the players from the last two games and provide a good assessment of the squad. Although the home side took the lead through a disputable goal we played rather well but this eleven was missing that something extra that the other players had. We continued to dominate in the second half and when Forest Green went down to 10 men I brought on N’Goma and Shane Williams and a quick fire double late in the game from N’Goma finally won us the match.

After the game my physio reported that LB Darren Lough would be out of action for at least 6 weeks so I was able to secure Joseph Mills as a replacement for the next two months.

We were back at the Abbey Stadium for a home game featuring Wimbledon as the visiting team and after a very uneventful first half N’Goma gave us the lead after a harmless looking ball forward was gifted to the Gambian by the Wimbledon defence for an easy tap home, 1-0. RB Shimmin who had been booked in the first half inevitably got himself sent off in the second and Wimbledon forged an equalizer with the man advantage. With the game settling towards a tie yet another harmless looking ball forward landed at the feet of Fofana who was totally unmarked and he rounded the keeper to slot home the winner a minute before time.

The final game of the month was away to Tamworth who were in 20^th place. I risked rotating out my preferred eleven again which resulted in a performance that was laboured and for the most part ineffectual. The strength and determination though of Ismael Fofana finally created an opportunity from the left flank that strike partner Danny Wright turned into the net for the only goal of the game.

So we got off to a terrific start in the league remaining unbeaten for the month and find ourselves at the top of the table. Dorian N’Goma has four goals already so hopefully there is more to come.

Table

Fixtures

We start off next month with a difficult game against Rushden before an emotional encounter with Wrexham and a challenging match with early promotion rivals Luton Town

Thanks for reading and see you next time!