Mark Bonner hails Cambridge improvement in stalemate with 10-man Bolton

Posted Sunday, November 13, 2022 by PA

Mark Bonner felt his Cambridge side had shown great improvement in their goalless League One draw with 10-man Bolton.

The U’s have now gone five home league games in a row without scoring, but they collected a hard-earned point.

Harvey Knibbs was denied by an important save and Jack Lankester missed another good chance for the U’s, while Bolton should have opened the scoring – just before Kyle Dempsey was sent off for a second yellow card – when Gethin Jones headed wide while unmarked.

“We’re delighted to draw a game, which sounds silly,” Bonner said afterwards. “It’s only our second draw in 18 games.

“I thought it was a really entertaining 0-0, a really good game. We were much better and it followed on really well from our performances at Wycombe and Peterborough.

“Clean sheets are the thing that will build us some stability to be in games and grind out some results.

“I’m really pleased that we’ve taken something from the game and the level that we’ve hit. Lots of what we did was good. I think we’ve turned a corner at Wycombe, I think we’re doing alright.

“If we put in performances like that we’ll be absolutely fine and get plenty of results. If we can have that stability to start with and keep clean sheets and have that worth ethic, we’ll create chances like we did today.

“Those chances will turn into goals, then when goals become winning games confidence improves and it sort of looks after itself a little bit.

“I enjoyed the team I watched on the pitch today. I think everyone will agree that that’s a decent level for us today.”

Bolton boss Ian Evatt was delighted that his side had also reached a much high level than they hit in October.

“I thought we were robust, aggressive, intense,” he said. “You have to defend your box really well here, we did that.
In the second half we were really in the ascendancy.

“It was looking like the goal was going to come. We had two huge chances. Somehow from a four versus two overload, we make the wrong decision, and Gethin misses a really simple chance from a corner.

“A minute later, when it’s all us, Dempsey’s off the pitch which changes things. Even then I thought they were more fearful of us than the other way around. I thought it was a sound enough performance.

“I’m not going to speak about referees because I’ll end up getting myself in trouble. It’s crazy. There’s no way our players deserved that many yellow cards today.

“I felt like we were going to go on to win the game until the red card. It looked a bit more like us today.”