INTERVIEW: SHAUN DERRY
Shaun Derry feels his side must take all the encouragement they can from Tuesday’s record breaking Football League win over Morecambe, but must remain grounded ahead of Notts County clash.
An emphatic 7-0 victory over the Shrimps on Tuesday evening kept the U’s hopes of a play-off finish in Sky Bet League Two alive, and United Boss Derry is keen to see further improvement this weekend.
He commented: “What I want us to do is take all the positives from Tuesday night, and even within all of those positives there is still room for improvement.
“Everything before the game and during the 90 minutes, seemed to go right for us and we matched that with a good level of performance, but it is a very rare thing to have in football.
“So it has been back to business this week, making sure that the players are both physically and mentally right for a fixture against another tough opponent. Of course we enjoyed that result, but we have to remain grounded.
“I'm always striving and jumping on people when I know there's that extra five or 10 per cent.
“That was probably all we're talking about on Tuesday night – it was a 90 per cent performance, it really was, but there are still elements of the game where we want to be better.”
Derry returns to Meadow Lane for the first time as Cambridge United Manager and states his and the first team’s focus will be solely on the task in hand.
He added: “Of course I can’t ignore the history, but Notts County is just another opponent and my only concern will be on how we can perform. We’ll all be fully focused on doing a job for Cambridge United.
“We know that we are only in control of the performance and results we can produce with three games of the season to go.
“In order to achieve that top seven finish that we are all still chasing, we are of course hoping that things go right for us elsewhere, but we need three wins it’s as simple as that beginning this weekend.
“We have a wonderful away support and we’ll be looking for them to come and follow us again on Saturday.”
Tickets for the match will be available on the gate at Meadow Lane for travelling U’s fans.