Buongiorno

Hello all. There haven't been any posts on here for the last week as I have been sunning myself, eating pizza, and having close encounters with the mafia (I'm not joking) in Sicily. Good times.

In my absence it seems little happened Cambridge United-wise before the flurry of activity in the last 48 hours;

Morro is a fox

I'm sure all our female supporters would agree, ahem. First off you have to say it's a great move for young Michael, who has served the club brilliantly over the last three years. He's certainly good enough for League One, and a move should do him the world of good, as I feel at times last season he looked as if he'd gone as far as he could at our level. His signing of a new deal in January also suggests he's a decent lad who appreciates the grounding he's had at United. Best of luck Morro.

"It's a win-win situation" crowed the ever-ebulant George Rolls in the CEN, who should perhaps look up the definition of win-win, given that we now only have three centre halves, two of whom have less than a season of BSP experience between them. However, at least it gives the Brabinator some more cash to bring in his own men, which leads me nicely onto:

Tonkin and Parkinson sign

On paper both new boys look to be astute aquisitions. But yeah, I know, football isn't played on paper blah blah blah, but what's the point of pre-season if you can't get excited about new players who will probably turn out to be mediocre/crocked/gone by October. I rate Reed as a squad player at best, and Collins is very much an unknown quantity, so Tonkers is a welcome addition in my eyes. And if he turns out to be as good as the last couple of ex-Forest Greeners we've picked up (Beesley and Hatswell) he should do alright.

Parky has a good pedigree too, and given that he's coming from a higher level he should be able to make a good impact in the BSP. Another scouser as well, I hope all the new arrivals from the North West will be speaking in a language the normal (ie. Southern) players can understand.

City friendly arranged, Posh friendly cancelled

As I said in a previous post, while I was quite looking to going to Scummers again, I feel playing a friendly against them is tantamount to admiting we're not going to face them in a proper match any time soon. So with that in mind it's good that the pre-season game is cancelled and we can maintain our dignity until they (hopefully) do a Rushden. And I always enjoy a trip to Cambridge City, so hurrah for common sense.

Fixtures

2008/09 will start where 2007/08 finished; Northwich. One suspects it will be a slightly more difficult game, played in a slightly different atmosphere to last seasons end-of-term jolly. One thing which annoys me is that we meet Histon Village again twice in quick succession. I'm all for local games around the holiday time, but with so many Southern teams in the Conference, why can't they mix it up a bit a bit and give us, say, Histon, Stevenage, and Kettering, over the holiday period. Having said that, a bigger gap between games would give them more time to gloat after they inevitably turn us over at that poor excuse for a stadium of theirs, so it's not all bad news I suppose.