Speaking to the Cambridge Evening News last night he said, "We need to improve the defence. We've been trying to do it for a while, but it's hard to get people in and I can't see it happening before we go to Bristol City on Saturday."

The U's slipped to their fifth league defeat in the last six games and down one place in the table, leaving only Colchester United below, and McFarland underlined that strengthening the defence remains his priority.

"They had a commanding centre-half in Chris Hope, and a great goalkeeper in Lionel Perez, he commented about Scunthorpe. "That was what won the match for them. I enquired about Hope in the summer because he was one of the best defenders we played against last season, and the keeper pulled off a brilliant save at a vital time when it was 2-1 with seven minutes to go.

"We knew after pre-season we might have problems in defence, and improving it has become the priority. But I'm having some of those long drawn-out talks with a club in our division about a player, and the chance of getting a Premiership centre-back in on loan disappeared when that team picked up some injuries. I'll keep on plugging away, but at the moment it looks as though we've just got to knuckle down and try to tighten our play."

It was ironic that of the three strikers on show, transfer-listed Michael Kyd out-shone his coveted strike partners. McFarland noted this, saying, "It was encouraging that a lot of our game operated much better than in the Cup in Saturday, and Michael Kyd played well enough to have had a hat-trick with a bit more luck. But you don't give yourself much chance of winning when you give away two goals in the first half an hour or so."

Defender Scott Eustace, criticised by several fans for looking slow and unfit, told the CEN, "We needed a good start, but they score and a few heads go down. We give them another, the crowd gets on your back, and you are sitting there 2-0 down at half time. We have to give ourselves a better chance than that."