Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner insists Ipswich Town defeat will not define their season
Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner has stressed that tonight’s 3-0 defeat at Ipswich Town is not the type of result that will define his side’s season.
It was a spirited showing by the U’s, who held out against their promotion-chasing hosts until 18 minutes from time when their resistance was finally broken in front of a crowd of more than 26,000 at Portman Road.
Reflecting on the Sky Bet League One encounter, Bonner said: “(I’m) only disappointed because we lost but let’s be honest our season won’t be defined by night’s like this.
“If anyone finishes above them in the league they’ve done well, they’re a brilliant team.
“One of the games we watched in build up to this was the one at Accrington (2-0 Ipswich win) and they would have felt they were bang in the game and in a brilliant position until they make the substitutions they can.
“I thought we worked our socks off to be in that game. It sounds silly to say that we’ve worked so hard to lose 3-0.
“We were awkward, we made it really difficult for them to create chances – I thought we did that really well.
“In the second half we ended up a bit deep, which is obvious. They get lots of numbers around the ball and they counter press really well.
“We couldn’t quite get out and as a consequence of that the ball can land anywhere. The goals are a bit unfortunate really, but it’s probably just a consequence of the pressure.
“Our organisation and work ethic was very good but we weren’t able to bring enough moments to bring control in the second half. One through our own errors and then when you do get the ball back you’re absolutely spent so it’s hard to make quick decisions and have the awareness to find your quick passes.
"You know you’re going to have to come here and make quite a lot out of quite a little in terms of chances and ball possession – and we weren’t quite able to do that.
“The clock wouldn’t tick quite fast enough for us in the second half unfortunately! No disgrace at all, I think they’re a brilliant team flooded with excellent players that just kept stronger as the game went on.
“Tonight we had a few big players missing and we were unable to make those sort of changes that we might have been able to.”
The defeat means it is now four losses in the last five league outings for United.
However, in that sequence have been clashes with Barnsley and Derby County – both of whom were playing Championship football last term – while many expect tonight’s opponents to be in the second tier next term.
And it is the quality of the opposition in recent weeks that means Bonner is remaining level headed about the recent run of form.
“Everyone got excited when we won five out of 10 but you look where the wins have come and where the defeats have (and) I’m not surprised,” he added.
“That doesn’t mean we can’t be competitive but there’s a fairly clear split about where we’ve got our points and where we haven’t.
“It’s a nice reminder to everyone one of where we are. We know where we are and what our aims are for this season – nothing has really changed.
“When we play the top teams it’s really difficult, but we have to try and get as many points against them as we can and then look after the other games as best we can as well.
“You can’t chose the order of your games at all so we’ll go on winning runs, we’ll go on losing runs, we’ll go on one win in whatever and five wins in whatever but in the end it doesn’t really matter as long as we get the right number of points.”
Bonner also revealed that he was hopeful of having Harrison Dunk (knee), Joe Ironside (dead leg) and Shilow Tracey (illness) available for Saturdays trip to Bristol Rovers.
