Shaun Derry hopes Cambridge United can learn lessons

U's eager to make next step at Crawley

Shaun Derry is keen for Cambridge United to continue on the learning curve when they face Crawley Town away today (August 18) in Sky Bet League Two.

The U’s have started the campaign with two defeats – to Exeter City and Carlisle United – but they have shown promising signs in both matches.

However, they have conceded some uncharacteristic goals as well.

“Learning is a constant,” said United head coach Derry. “I never want to come away from a game which you don’t learn valuable lessons from.

“We learned that the goals we conceded against Exeter and Carlisle, I don’t think the opposition has really had to do a lot of work for them goals, if I’m honest.

“I think they are goals that individually and collectively we were disappointed with, so that’s something that we’ve worked on this week, as well as trying to work on the positive side of the game and work on an attacking way of playing against Crawley.”

Derry did also point to adjusting to the changes in the back four can take a little time as the season beds in.

“We’ve had changes in the back four that is a little bit different to last year’s back four,” he said.

“We’ve had three games now and made a number of changes against Bristol Rovers and obviously we got hit for four that night, but it was a disturbed back four.

“If you look at the back four we’ve played against Exeter and Carlisle, there will be changes again to that back four because we’ve got one of our most potent full-backs out of the game at this moment in time.

“We’ve got a young full-back who is learning every time he runs over those white lines and they are valuable lessons for him.”

He added: “I just feel that we’re going into this week’s game fully focussed.”