Cambridge United head coach Neil Harris questions squad’s mentality to cope with pressure after 2-0 defeat to Shrewsbury Town

Cambridge United head coach Neil Harris has questioned the mentality of some of his players following Saturday afternoon’s 2-0 defeat at Shrewsbury Town.

After beating Crawley Town in the league last weekend and higher-league Luton Town in the Vertu Trophy on Tuesday, the U’s made the trip to Shropshire seemingly in good spirits.

But it was a display that was lacking in every aspect at Croud Meadow, where hosting Shrewsbury had not won since 1 February.

And Harris saw some of the same traits from the squad that he inherited when he returned to the club last season, which ultimately ended in Cambridge being relegated from League One.

He said: “We’re a quarter of the way through the season and everyone keeps asking me – when do you start judging? Well I think we’ve seen it this week.

“We’ve been excellent in cup competitions, when there’s no pressure, lads can go out and perform. We’ve got a lot of players that like to play with no pressure. When the going gets tough, as we saw last season, we’ve got a lot of players that melt.

“I’ve made a lot of changes and I need to continue making changes at this football club, on and off the pitch, because we need to have more backbone about us as a group.

“We got to 18 points out of 11 games, I think that’s an outstanding return. I’ve kept my counsel on it, but it’s an outstanding return from where we’re at as a group. I’ve been asked after winning a lot of games recently about how we’re getting on, and I’ve said we have to be patient.

“Today is hard hitting and shows everybody where we’re at and why I keep going back to being Mr Nasty by moaning when we win. People say that he needs to chill out a little bit, no! Because if I don’t drive this group, we melt and go under and that’s what’s happened today.

“I got sucked into probably a false sense of where we were at by thinking Saturday (against Crawley) was excellent. It was what we wanted when we have to be patient and then counter and hurt teams, we won comfortably and it could have been five or six.

“Tuesday night we were outstanding against Luton and the squad is in a really good place, then we’ve come to Shrewsbury and we’ve gone under.

“After 12 games, that’s my assessment of the group. We’re inconsistent, we’re soft at times. Is there enough drive in the group? I don’t know, they need to show me. Players when they play in cup games are outstanding and brilliant, but take that form into league games.”

The defeat has left Cambridge 11th in the League Two standings, two points adrift of the play-off places.