Chavs:3 U's:1

I may be partly to blame for our demise at Stevenage on Thursday.

Having just seen Darren Murphy get his marching orders on the stroke of half time, I uttered the fateful words; "surely the worst we can do now is lose 1-0".

It was a school boy error on my part, because Cambridge United can always be relied upon to snatch disaster from the jaws of certain triumph. Our lackadaisical second half showing means we now have mountain of Kilimanjaro-esque proportions to climb in the second leg. Anyone got Cheryl Cole's number?

Everything seemed to be going so well too. The Brabinator shocked everyone with his starting line up, and although some of his personnel decisions were a bit dodgy (Crow? Challinor? no Holroyd?), the 5-3-2 formation he opted for worked like a charm for 45 minutes, with Gleeson and Tonker getting forward well to support the midfield, and the back three nullifying Steve Morison and Lee Boylan to the extent that they didn't manage a shot on target in the whole half.

For United Phillips was impressive, barreling about like a bovine in a crockery emporium. He looped a header onto the roof of the net, then blasted a 25-yarder narrowly wide after linking well with Crow. Chance of the half fell to Crowy though, and he really should have found the net when he met Jai Reason's clever cross but headed wide of the far post from close range.

Then came the sending off. To be honest I wasn't really paying attention as the players lined up for a corner, but replays show that Murphy ran across Challinor, who shamefully crumpled under the merest touch of the Stevenage man's shoulder. It wasn't even a foul, so you can understand why our hosts were little miffed to see their midfielder shown a straight red for violent conduct.

So often matches turn on incorrect refereeing decisions, and this was certainly one of those times, although not in the way most people would have expected. Stevenage came out for part two like a team possessed, whereas United looked like a team gripped by malaise. Whether they thought the game was in the bag, or (more likely) they were panicking at the thought that they must take advantage of this golden opportunity, I don't know, but what I do know is that it resulted in the archetypal game of two halves.

The Chavs scored almost immediately. Drury flung a free kick into the back post, where Morison beat Coulson all ends up and nodded the ball across goal for blond bombshell defender Mark Roberts to nod home from a yard out. Calamity. 1-0.

To give United their credit, they responded immediately and in emphatic fashion. From kick off, Reason and Crow worked a nice exchange on the left, with the former chipping a pass into the area where Crow chested it down and Phillips thumped a cracking volley past the unsighted Day from 18 yards. 1-1.

This should have been the cue for United to go on and win the match, and for a few brief moments we did threaten a second goal, with the immaculate Jon Ashton getting the faintest of touches on the ball to take it away from Challinor as the midfielder threatened to pounce on a Gleeson centre. But too often we were giving the ball away far too cheaply, and Stevenage made us pay by scoring a second. It came from a long ball from Drury, hit vaguely in the direction of Morison. Potter started to come, then stopped, meaning he was in no mans land as the Stevenage top scorer easily beat Coulson (again!) and looped a header into the net.

Our leader switched to 4-4-2, introducing Pitt and Willmott, but it had little effect, with neither of our flying wingers delivering any kind of quality into the box. The Pittster could have had a spot kick when he appeared to be shoved over in the box, but by then the ref had long since stopped giving United any decisions, presumably in an attempt to make up for his horrendous decision viz-a-viz the sending off.

Still, at least 2-1 would have been salvageable, but the third Stevenage goal put them very much in the driving seat. Again it was a stupid, stupid, one to concede, especially for a defence which is usually so solid. Day launched the ball long, Drury headed it down and Morison was given all the time and space he needed to slot past Potter. Easy peasy lemon effin squeezy. 3-1.

Ultimately most of the blame for this defeat has to lie with the players. I was a bit mystified and worried by the line up when I first saw it, but having done so well in the first half there was really no excuse for the meek surrender in the second. I usually hate all that cliched bollocks about showing "heart" and "desire", but there's no doubt the Stevenage players were more up for it in the second half than we were, which is a bit worrying at this stage of the season.

What the Brabinator should do for Monday's game I don't really know. The 3-5-2 formation worked well to a point, but is a bit on the defensive side when you need to score twice. On the other hand, Stevenage easily snuffed out our attack when we played 4-4-2 in the regular season game at their place the other week. Let's hope he makes the right decision; another year in non-league could turn me suicidal.

Man of the Match: Lee Phillips - One of the few players to keep going for the full 90, and scored a terrific goal to boot.






Tasty hot snack of the Match: Bacon Roll - Much as I hate to say it, the Stevenage version is much better than it's Cambridge counterpart.