Mark Bonner has explained some of the measures that will be taken for the upcoming busy fixture schedule, in order to give United the best chance of being “as intense and competitive” as possible in all matches.
The U’s are set to face four weeks of back to back Saturday/Tuesday turnarounds, and Cambridge United’s Head Coach has said there should be an expectation of squad rotation as the coaching staff do all they can to keep the first team fresh for action.
He said: “We haven’t got any monster journeys in the next 30 days, unless the FA Cup throws one up for us so that’s good. We haven’t got to worry so much about travel. There’s certain things you can’t avoid in terms of injury and fatigue levels will go up in between games.
“We have arranged for all the Tuesday games kick off at 7:00pm instead of 7:45pm, so that’s a minor detail but it does mean the players get in bed an hour earlier. That rest and recovery matters, so that little difference might help.
“And obviously the limited training time that we do, we don’t burn the players in between the games because we need the maximum from them in the matches.
“So there is a responsibility for us as coaches to manage the workload of everybody, to keep the ones who don’t play as ready as they can be, as well as inter-change the players that do, whether that means a change in shape, personnel or the way we play to keep players fresh. We’ll certainly see more of that over the next month, and that started at the weekend against Newport.
“The management of the squad is important to give us the best chance to be as intense and competitive as possible throughout the season.”
United begin their run of fixtures at Glanford Park this week, against a Scunthorpe United side which Bonner feels carry more of a threat than their run of results in league Two suggest thus far.
“We’ve got an idea of how we think they might play, they have got a young squad so will certainly have legs and energy.
“They play in a nice way in terms of how they build possession, and they have carried good threats in their games.
“Ultimately we have to maximise our eleven, and we start to have a winning habit, a winning mentality, a winning work ethic, knowing what it takes to not only compete in games but get on top of them.
“If we are going to be a team that consistently wins we have to show up every single week, so we have to make sure we’re at that level again this weekend.”