INTERVIEW: SHAUN DERRY
Cambridge United Manager Shaun Derry feels his side will revel in the chance to perform in an “electric” Fratton Park atmosphere against Portsmouth this Saturday.
Over 500 U’s fans will make the journey to the south coast to back the men in Amber and Black for the hotly anticipated encounter, and the United boss is determined for the U's to take advantage of their surroundings.
He said: “We have to embrace the big atmosphere at Fratton Park. There tends to be 15,000 people supporting them at their home games, who are all very vocal and that is great because all players want to play in front of large crowds.
“We’ll travel down to Portsmouth knowing that it will be an electric atmosphere, and I’m sure that will drive us on. We are very much looking forward to playing a team who obviously also have very good support, good players but are still only two points above us.
“Paul [Cook] will be wanting to see a response from his team but we have to concentrate on ourselves and when we have been able to do that, we’ve produced performances that have led to results.”
Derry, who spent two years for this weekend’s opponents during his playing, career is confident his team can carry their form of recent weeks into the clash and continue their push up the table.
He added: “We were obviously pleased with the result last weekend and I felt we produced a strong performance against York, who were a team also on form. To win at home in the way we did gives us great momentum going forward into this weekend’s match.
“The form in general has been good and the away form has been a highlight, but we also go into the game on the back of three wins out of four so we’ll therefore be very confident.”