Cambridge United beaten by Connor Wickham's stoppage-time penalty for Forest Green Rovers

Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner has spoken of his disappointment after watching his side suffer a 2-1 defeat at Forest Green Rovers this afternoon.

It looked like Saikou Janneh had rescued the U’s a point against a side that started the afternoon bottom of Sky Bet League One with his 89th-minute equaliser, but a controversial penalty in stoppage time from Connor Wickham earned the home side all three points.

“We lacked a little bit in the second half in terms of creation of chances but in the first 30 minutes I thought we were very good and should have got ahead,” Bonner told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

“It’s a brilliant goal (from United) and the penalty soon after it – the view we’ve had on it, it was hard to tell at the time.

“You can sometimes tell by the reaction of players and I’m not sure there’s much in it if I’m honest. It’s a really disappointing way to lose the game when we’ve got ourselves in it because we were deserving of something from that.

“There were moments in the game when we were good and to be beaten right at the death in that way as well, I’ve got to be careful (what I say) and until I’ve seen it from a better angle, it didn’t look one (a penalty) live, it didn’t look one on the video and the lads are adamant it wasn’t one.”

The defeat continued United’s recent poor run of form, one that has seen them collect just four points from the last 30 available.

They remain 20th in the table, but the gap to the relegation zone has now been cut to three points.

However, Bonner remains confident that with a large number of points left to play for, his team has plenty of opportunities to turn the situation around.

“The position isn’t so concerning now really it’s just the points. Can we get performances and put them together to get us the points return that we need,” he added.

“We’re three points behind where we were after 20 games last year so when you say the big picture, that isn’t a lot really. And we’ve taken four points from the last five league games and that’s a couple shy of where we want to be.

“Really we’re probably five or six points short of where we wanted to be at this stage and three points behind where we were last year. There’s 26 games to play (and) that’s an awful lot of football.

“We go into a tough run of games coming up but we need everyone behind us and the players to stick at it because if we do that we can turn out results. I’ve got no doubt about that because the players are desperate to do well and that’s a really good starting point.

“We’re certainly not happy with the run of results or the form or the situation we find ourselves in and we need to turn that quickly, but we also know we’re not at the halfway point of the season yet. There is a long way to go and I think it was always going to be difficult, but the last spell has proved more difficult and not as strong as we obviously wanted it to be.

“(We) get back at it and see what we can do in the next little block of games.”