Dunne "furious" after U's surrender lead to lose (From Essex County Standard)

Glad that you are having a moan at the players ; it is about time someone did! They must take some of the blame for this lacklustre, uninspiring result. We can only hope for a better performance at home to Stevenage at the weekend. Up the U's!!

Joe Dunne is also partly to blame himself by changing a winning team at half time without real cause. If it's not broke don't fix it! He made two changes at half time, one at centre half and the other in midfield. If he wanted to give the youngsters Gilbey and Wright a run out, he should either put them in from the start or, after 60 - 65 minutes. Joe needs to improve his decision making as well as the players!

Sounds from the radio commentary that we only have ourselves to blame for this defeat - should have maximised our advantage whilst on top and shouldn't have made substitutions at the very start of the 2nd half.

I long for that extra buzz we get from decent cup runs, even the JPT. Our record in all cup competitions over the past few seasons has been woeful.

Long gone are the days when we were the team that others didn't want to get paired against.

I wouldn't have been confident had we gone onto a penalty shoot-out either.

Hoping for much better on Saturday, but nervous!!

It's only the JPT guys, we have the league to focus on, and trying to get up the table.

Good result I say.

i'll be in my seat saturday expecting a 2-1 win to us.come on you u's.

I agree with Simon. I too listened to this on the radio and hoped that we could once again visit wembley.
But realistically, j d has realised that Eastman and Magnus will be 100% fit for playing 45 minutes rather that 70, 90 or nothing. Hence Heath staying on. The same goes for Bean.

So while I would have loved a wembley visit, I do see that in hindsight, the next game and the one after would be played out the same as this one. A run out for the first 11, 90 minutes for the back ups, and a bit of time for the kids.

Let's give Joe Dunne some credit. He deliberately made seven changes to rest key players - no Rose, no Wilson, no Eastman (but he came on as sub), no Eastmond, nor Watt, Massey or Ibrehe - and, just as he clearly stated prior to the game, Joe offered others a chance to prove that they too could succesfully play the newly favoured slick passing game. In the first half the U's were excellent and should have perhaps scored a hatful. Only deperate lunges and fingertip saves kept the Cobblers in the game (n.b. I was there and at the interval the faithful that had made thr trip were buzzing with praise for the seven stand ins). Then sadly, the wheels came off when Magnus and the hard working Marcus Bean were (rightfully) subbed at half time to also spare their legs for Saturday. We were then watching (almost) a reserve team, with perhaps only two or three remaining on the pitch ever likely to make Saturday's First XI.

Frankly, I am afraid some of the remaining old guard and to a lesser extent the youngsters did lose the plot, and the concentration and cohesion of the first half went right out of the window. No lack of effort, just a reduction in talent/skill on show compared to the line up in previous matches (and that of the first half). All this perhaps tells us is that we don't have quite as much strength in depth than we thought. But I would sooner Joe Dunn, like Cinderella, be trying on different new boots to find what best fits when in the Paint Pot trophy than to risk experimenting in Division One. Hence his visit to the Cobblers was useful, even if mine and 163 others was a little disappointing.