Mark Bonner hails Cambridge’s display in win over Reading

Posted Tuesday, September 05, 2023 by PA

Mark Bonner lauded his Cambridge side’s display after they saw off Reading.

The U’s responded to a disappointing loss at Leyton Orient to beat the Royals 1-0 courtesy of Fejiri Okenabirhie’s strike seven minutes from the end.

Cambridge climbed back into the top six of League One, while Reading are yet to pick up a point away from home this season.

“I thought it was a brilliant game,” Bonner said afterwards.

“Both teams had good chances, both teams were trying to win the game. There was drama throughout the game, and in the ending obviously they could have got something from it, but I thought our performance level was good.

“I liked the intent that we started with. It was a brilliant chance early on, I’m surprised we didn’t score early in the game, so it was there for us, but I’m delighted with the game that we played.

“We gave our subs the chance to come on and win the game, which is important. We’ve got to make sure that when we make those changes we’re in a game that gives them a chance of winning it for us.

“There was lots to like about us tonight, it was much more us. I think five out of six games we’ve been a good side this year.

“I love in the 30th minute how we defended our box, amazing. Everybody chucking their body in the way to block things, that’s us at our best. You’ve got to give everything. (It’s) a bit rock and roll sometimes, not always perfect, but that’s what we want to see. I really liked the intent in our game tonight.”

Ruben Selles expressed his disappointment at Reading’s display, saying: “The thought is that our performance was not good enough.

“We had a plan of how to come here and try to win the game. We were trying to get a tempo of the game and we didn’t. We tried different variations, and we had an opponent that closed all the spaces and played the game really well.

“I’m disappointed with the result, I’m disappointed with the performance.

“We had chances in the game to score goals. I think we created enough to at least score one goal. We need to be more ruthless, we need to be more nasty.

“We need to know how to play our own game, and we need to know how to control the game as a team. Today, for some periods of the game we were not with that control.

“We know the team we want to be. There are some positive things in what we do but at the end of the day we need to win football matches.”