Stuff

Hello all. I'm back from holiday and have returned to a country gripped by ELECTION FEVER. Sort of.

As far as I can tell this election campaign so far has been much like United's season - boring, much too long, and featuring a cast incompetents, none of whom are capable of delivering a positive outcome. Sadly the main difference is that while Lingy can ditch his underperformers in a few weeks time when their present deals expire, one of the political parties is going to be given a new five-year contract to run the country. The mind boggles.

Anyway, in my absence the Mighty U's have won a pointless game against Mansfield (highlights below, looks like it was a cracker), and lost pointless games at Gateshead and Salisbury.



Lingy has been handed his budget for next year, which he considers will put United in the top-eight of the spending league table; "I'd say it's in the top eight budgets in the Conference and I'm happy with that, although I'd say it's nearer eighth than first. In terms of 'is the amount I can spend better than when I came here?', I'd say yes," he told the CN last week.

Sticking to budgets hasn't exactly been United's forte in the last few years, but assuming we can maintain this level of spending, it sounds like a sensible basis on which to build a promotion push. The likes of Dagenham, Aldershot, and (to an extent) Burton have shown that it isn't necessarily the team with the most money that wins this league, and indeed tonight's opponents Oxford have totally lost their momentum since they made several expensive, high profile, additions to their squad in the January transfer window.

It will be interesting to see how a United side, boosted by the return from injury of Saah, Gleeson, Carden, and Crow, fares against the fake U's. We matched them when they came to the Abbey earlier in the season, and hopefully we can pick up at least another point at the Kassam.