Cambridge United head coach Neil Harris provides damning assessment of performance during 2-0 defeat to Shrewsbury Town

Neil Harris has branded Cambridge United’s performance during this afternoon’s 2-0 defeat at Shrewsbury Town as ‘shambolic’ and ‘one of the worst’ of his managerial career.

Up against a Shrews side that had not won at their Croud Meadow base since 1 February, the match appeared to be a good opportunity for the U’s to record back-to-back League Two victories for the first time this season.

While Cambridge had 61 per cent possession, they struggled to create anything significant of note during a display that saw a whole host of passes go astray.

Harris said: “The result speaks for itself. We’ve lost 2-0 away to a team that’s struggling in the league, struggling to find their form. And the performance was shambolic in some manners.

“That’s a strong word for a manager to use about his team and I’m absolutely gutted. That’s one of the worst performances I’ve seen from a team of mine in my 500 games managing.

“The bottom line is we got a sucker punch with the first goal. We were in control of the football and we turn the ball over unopposed and it ends up in our net. The second one is a free header from a set play which is so unlike us.

“And then we just found a way to turn the ball over or kick the ball off the pitch time and time again. The amount of times we changed it to try and find solutions, just nothing worked.

“Sometimes you just have to accept – I don’t like it – and you can take Jake (Eastwood) out of it because he’s hardly touched the ball this afternoon apart from to pick the ball out of the net twice, we’ve had 10 players that started the game the subs that came on, they were poor. Nearly every player representing our football club today was poor and you can’t do that at any level of football.”