...a solid start with a mixture of decent wins and perhaps more impressive draws against : Wednesday, Ipswich, Plymouth and Oxford. The results and current midtable position coupled with 8 draws would indicate a careful and frugal philosophy that seeks to keep the game tight for as long as possible . A stoic approach based on their promotion last year in contrast to the boom and bust of the Bolton way.
A league team proper from 1970 the U's have had a decent modern history. Slightly older footy fans will remember the John Beck era. He built a very big, and powerful side and led them to 2 consecutive promotions including the 3rd division title...and they weren't done . They went one step further by getting in the 2nd division play offs beating Leicester at home but crashing 5 nil at filbert Street. So very near to an incredible treble and I'm sure many U,s fans still wake up in cold sweats with murmurs of what if...
Alas, the world is a cruel Mother and fate only favours a fair few and so the tumbled all the way back down again in just a handful of seasons and eventually back out of the league too.
A quick trawl of their results also reveals a manager who fancies himself a bit of a tinker. I counted 4 different starting formations and 7 if one includes substitutions. Now, either he's a genius or he's not quite sure of his team or himself just yet. Still, as i said , they have a very decent set of results.
Happy news for us merry millers is they play an FA Cup replay tonight and although we have had a couple of players having game time during the international break hopefully they return fit and can look after the bench while a fresh 11 gird their loins and steal their Miller hearts for battle.
It will be grand to win. A point will be disappointing. A loss will see me eating cardboard in a corner .
A hard fought victory against a decent side. we were the better side in the first half but whether we deserved to be 2-0 up is debatable. A well taken goal by Wiles and a stupid penalty on half time gave us the lead. They came out in the second half and took the game to us with Hoolihan pulling the strings. They got it back to 2-1 and had us rocking. The ball was not sticking up front and Grigg was taken off as he had been ineffective (not sure about him, possibly needs Smith in team) The midfield was not giving the usual protection to the back three with wiles giving away the ball and Saddlier not really doing it for me. The introduction of Miller for Ferguson and Lindsay for Saddlier turned the game back in our favour. Miller sent in a sublime cross and Freddie got on the end of it to seal the game. Ladapo worked hard and has probably got his name on the team sheet at the side of smith on Tuesday i hope. Hoolihan went off with around ten minutes to go and that was the end of them.
i thought we were below par today with only Barlaser really hitting the heights of the past few weeks. To win the game 3-1 was the real bonus. Ironside (grandson of Roy) up front proved a handful and i think he won the physical battle with wood. Reg didn't win enough ball for me and Harding although mainly decent has this mistake in him when playing left sided of a back three. At times we looked good but at other times we looked vulnerable. With a bit more quality in the final third and a bit more luck Cambridge could have come close to getting something from this game. i hope both Rathbone and Smith are available on Tuesday as they appear to be key players on yesterdays showing.
