Colin Calderwood sees positives despite Cambridge draw

Posted Wednesday, October 23, 2019 by PA

Colin Calderwood saw the positives in his side’s display despite Cambridge’s failure to break down Grimsby in their goalless draw.

James McKeown saved Sam Smith’s penalty shortly before half time and continued to thwart the U’s as the Mariners held out at the Abbey Stadium.

The result came on the back of a 4-0 win for Cambridge in their previous fixture, while Grimsby had lost by the same scoreline at the weekend.

“We’ve created the best chance by winning a penalty kick and we’ve had more efforts in the second half so the players have got nothing to be embarrassed about,” Calderwood said.

“We didn’t really have so many opportunities, the penalty obviously being the best one. I thought we moved the ball particularly well on lots of occasions. There’s times that we were all frustrated that we didn’t execute something a bit more incisive and forward too often, but credit to them.

“Their shape was really solid and (it was) difficult to find any time in the last third. It maybe came once or twice when they had a venture forward a little bit but testament to them, they stuck to their task.

“It wasn’t to be tonight. No complaints. It’s nice to have two clean sheets at home and we move on to the weekend.

“If you score your penalty kicks throughout the season it helps you so much. We’ve missed two at home when the score’s been 0-0 and we’ve ended up with one point from the two games. Those moments we can reflect on and we can gnash our teeth a little bit.”

Asked about his side’s clean sheet three days after conceding four to Leyton Orient, Grimsby boss Michael Jolley described it as “a well-deserved one.”

He said: “We had a great penalty save from our goalkeeper to say thank you for but our defensive organisation was good, we put our bodies on the line when we needed to and defensively I thought we were excellent.

“We knew what they would try and do and we were quite happy to make sure we were in the right positions defensively and try and make life as difficult as we could for them. I think we did that well.

“We wanted to defend better but still try and pose a threat, which is why we played the two strikers up there. Over the piece I think we had some really good chances. Even in the first half we had a couple of half chances but definitely second half we had some chances.

“Although we are slightly disappointed not to win, this team won 4-0 at home on Saturday and we’ve managed to come here and get a good point.”