Mark Bonner sat down with local media prior to Cambridge United’s televised clash with Wigan Athletic on Saturday (April 16th)…
On the Latics...
“They can play a lot of ways to win games, I think the impressive thing about them is the way in which they’ve adapted their styles in order to win games.
“They can win games when they’re not playing well; they can run away with games when they are playing well, the consistency in their results is great. They score a lot and don’t concede many, but obviously when you’re at the top of the table, you’re also top of most statistical tables.
“They’re certainly in a really good position at the moment. I saw them on Tuesday against Burton, so it was nice to see them live.
“There’s no doubt that in the position that they are in, they’re heading for the title, they’re charging towards that and it’s more of a case of when rather than if.
“They’re in the position that they were expected to be in, but they’ve shown remarkable consistency, and they’re deserving of the position they’re in.
“If you look at the spine of the team, even though they’re missing a few players at the minute, they’ve got so much depth, so they’re team doesn’t really get weaker when they have to make changes.
“It’s going to be an entertaining Easter Weekend, a lot is usually decided over it, and having been in Wigan’s position last season, we know that at this time of the season can throw up a lot of different performances.”
On November’s Abbey clash…
“We played well that night, but they’ve come from behind a lot this season and it’s the reason they find themselves where they are.
“It was a good evening that, it was on my birthday! Obviously, it wasn’t the outcome we wanted but maybe the one we deserved, as they started to show their quality as the game went on – but I’m sure, given the position they found themselves in, they would have taken a point that night.”
Team news…
“George [Williams] has trained this week and we expect him to take part fully in training today, I think he’ll benefit from the rest, so we’re hopeful to have him available on Saturday.
“Sam Sherring isn’t looking so good, we had a scan on Monday and it didn’t return too well for him, so he’ll see a specialist next week – so he’ll definitely miss the next two games.
“Until we get past the Charlton game on Tuesday, we won’t know whether he will be able to contribute to the season anymore.
“I think he’s done really well, especially in the early part of his loan, he contributed to a lot of wins and clean sheets, and he’s a good lad around the dressing room.
“Liam [O’Neil] trained yesterday and will today, so if all goes well for the remainder of the week, he’ll hopefully be available at some point.”
On making changes to the team…
“There’s no scientific formular to making changes, we played at Ipswich with a team that did exceptionally well and the three players behind the striker were pretty shot really, so we couldn’t expect them to do it again on Tuesday so we gave others an opportunity.
“When we got to the weekend, we saw it as an opportunity to make a couple more changes, but we didn’t want to make too many changes to every block of the team.
“I think the balancing act we must strike is that we want to make sure everyone gets an opportunity to play, but we still want to be as competitive as we can.
“We’ve given ourselves a bit of a free hit really, as in the consequences of defeat may not be as big as they could have been, but there’s not a chance that we would go into a game for the remainder of the season not wanting to win.”