FA Cup stuff

It's been a unpleasantly busy seven days here at U's Blog towers, which means I haven't had a great deal of time to reflect upon a week of cup football that has been more depressing than a double bill of La Vie en Rose and Requiem for a Dream.

Of course, the reserves losing to Telford in the Barrowman Bowl shouldn't have been too disasterous or unexpected - I suspect anyone could've looked a midfield four of Jones - Convery - Quinton - Jardim and noted that it was on the lightweight side of flimsy.

But to pick up suspensions for Carden and Bolland in a nothing match was careless in the extreme. Without Carden, I'm not especially confident that we can beat Crawley this weekend but you never know. One positive is that Steve Evans' teams tend to be skillful rather than thuggish, so that could play in our favour.

Saturday's match also trundled to a drearily predictable conclusion, I think the only way to break our Aggborough hoodoo would be to try and persuade Kiddy to sign Shaun Marshall or Darren Behcet, or to just get them to play without a keeper. Even then we'd probably still lose somehow.

"I've told the lads to keep believing. I'm looking at the bigger picture and I'm happy with the way we're doing things."We'll soon get the rub of the green and I still believe someone is going to get a pounding where everything is going to go in for us and that would kick us on," said the Brabinator, who post-match ramblings are sounding more hopeful than expectant by the week.

You have to wonder whether we are paying the price for having two defenders and a defensive midfielder on the coaching staff? Certainly it sounded on the radio (yes I wasn't there) like we created plenty of chances but couldn't take them. Beesley in particular seems to have got into a lot of good positions in recent matches but put the chances away. Despite being a naturally cautious manager, JQ always seemed to be able to get that little bit extra out of the strikers which at the moment our current management team don't seem able to do.

To make matters worse, that other lot are into the next round, and have landed a plum home televised tie with Leeds or Northampton. "If we play Leeds then we would look to bring in a couple of temporary stands," Gareth Baldwin told this mornings Cambridge Evening News. Temporary stands for temporary fans sounds about right to me, hehe.