Birmingham City 4-0 Cambridge United match reaction: Garry Monk felt U’s showed League One leaders ‘too much respect’ during first half at St Andrew’s

Head coach Garry Monk felt that his Cambridge United side showed ‘too much respect’ to their opposition during the first half of this evening’s 4-0 defeat at Birmingham City.

The League One-leading Blues were three-up going into the break at St Andrew’s thanks to a Jay Stansfield penalty, a Liam Bennett own goal and an effort from Kieran Dowell.

Luke Harris completed the scoring for the home side 11 minutes from time, but Monk conceded that the damage had been done during the opening 45 minutes.

Monk said: “We knew the challenge ahead of us. Birmingham are the outliers in the league with the quality that they have and the form that they are in, but we didn’t help ourselves.

“First half especially, we showed them too much respect. We weren’t getting up to people, which we actually have been quite good at in terms of making contact and the physicality of it.

“We were nowhere near that in the first half and against quality sides you get punished if you stand off. If you stand off against anyone in this league you get punished, but even more so against this type of quality. That’s cost us the game.

“In the second half we were better at that, better at getting up to them and trying to disrupt them, but I’m most disappointed with the first half.”

In terms of Cambridge’s fight for third tier survival, this evening’s defeat has changed very little. They remain rooted to the foot of the table, with the gap to safety staying at seven points.

And it is their upcoming run of fixtures – starting at home against Exeter City on Saturday (15 February) – that Monk believes will ‘define the outcome of the season’.

“I’ve said to the boys this game tonight won’t define the outcome of the season,” he added.

“I said at half-time it was important to see us getting amongst it, causing some problems, being more physical and showing less respect. It was important to show all of that and then take that into the game at the weekend.

“What will define our season will be these home games coming up – all of them. And then it will be the games like Crawley away, Burton away and Shrewsbury away – that’s what’s going to dictate the season.

“That’s not dismissing tonight – it wasn’t good enough. But there were signs in the second half of what was important to see. When you’ve had a defeat like that, it’s important that we have something to use as mentality to take into the game at the weekend because it’s huge.

“If we can finish this week with three points on Saturday and we have a four-point week then it’s not been a bad week – that’s our ultimate aim.”