Blues lose one-nil to Cambridge United in the Carabao Cup. Andy Munro reports.
It was a disappointing start, but that’s something us Bluenoses have grown used to. In truth, once Blues conceded the only goal of the match we huffed and puffed to no avail. The goal itself was disappointing, with our 6’4″ keeper looking more 
While I’m balancing the negatives, on the one hand the gifted Bela was denied by the woodwork after a superlative effort but on the other he looked worryingly lightweight, being dispossessed too often. Midfielder Charlie Lakin never provided any decent width on the other side, not helped by Pedersen’s continual poor touch. Even the goal we conceded was the fault of Harlee Deane and cried out for the aerial dominance of Marc Roberts, who was surprisingly on the bench.
In terms of offence, we played a lot of possession football but it was painfully slow and only Dan Crowley looked like he had the guile to open things up. I felt sorry for the seventeen year old Aiden George, who showed some nice touches but was never given the sort of ball to run onto behind to use his pace. He cut a lonely figure up front, with Blues not gambling enough getting into the box.
Let’s hope the painful build up and safety-first strategy on show isn’t a sign of things to come but, to be fair to the new manager, it’s early days. A hopeful sign, however, was the introduction of Clayton and Toral, who certainly brightened things up. Yes, it’s very early days.