Cambridge boss Joe Dunne: Macclesfield win was a slog

Posted Sunday, October 28, 2018 by PA

Joe Dunne was relieved Cambridge managed to win ugly against Macclesfield after seeing recent results go against his team.

The U’s won 1-0 to earn their first home victory in Sky Bet League Two since August 11.

Jabo Ibehre scored nine minutes from the end to break the deadlock in a game lacking many clear-cut chances, though it came only seconds after Ben Stephens had hit the crossbar at the other end for the visitors.

Macclesfield are five points from safety after their latest loss. Having gone on a long run without tasting success, Cambridge have now won twice this week.

“That was a grind,” Dunne said. “The weather turned, it was the coldest day of the season so far, fans have got to stand on the terrace and watch that slog, because it was a slog.

“There wasn’t much in it but you’ve got to win those ones. You’ve got to grind it out and we did today. I think we’ve earned the right over the last few weeks to not play ever so well. I don’t like playing like that, the win at the end of it is a bonus. I’ve told the players we’ve got to be better than that.

“From where we’ve been and what we’ve done we’ve been on the end of one or two of those. Today was all about winning; taking seven points from nine this week is a very good week. If that means unfortunately having a bit of a bad day, an off performance and winning then we’ll take it, but I don’t want too many more of them.”

One of Macclesfield’s joint caretaker bosses Neil Howarth saw an improvement from their midweek hammering against Northampton but took little solace after another defeat.

“We had to apologise on Tuesday for the performance. I don’t feel like we have to apologise today,” Howarth said.

“We’ve done a lot of good things, but ultimately we’ve lost again. We’ve not kept a clean sheet again so it’s something that hurts at the end of a horrendous week.

“It’s difficult to take positives out of it, even though I felt there was only one team going to win it as the second half was progressing. So improvements definitely from Tuesday night but you can’t ever be pleased in the position we are, getting another defeat.

“I thought we’d scored and would go on to win the game, and seconds later we’ve not done. It was the first time in the whole match where we lost our shape a little bit, just two half-bad decisions and the ball’s in the back of our net.

“We could have still been celebrating a goal at the other end.”