Groundhog day

It's all getting a bit Bill Murray

With five weeks of the season gone, it feels like Cambridge United have already played the same fixture eight times.

Every match, United play some good stuff before shooting themselves in the foot defensively and then suffering from an inability to turn possession and chances into goals. I didn’t see Tuesday’s Bristol Street Motors Trophy defeat to Charlton, but it sounds like it followed the familiar pattern, with Garry Monk’s team gifting the opposition two goals, then finding themselves playing an unwinnable game of catch-up.

Like Bill Murray’s weatherman in the 1992 film Groundhog Day, Monk needs to find a way out of this recurring nightmare, but whether he is able to do so - and will be afforded the time to find a solution - remains to be seen.

Weak gruel

The return of one point from five league games must be particularly frustrating for Monk and his staff given that most performance indicators would suggest United are operating as a midtable team; our passing has got more accurate, we get into the opposition box more, create more chances and have more shots. In terms of xG, per Fotmob we have scored five goals where should’ve scored 6.4, and conceded 11 from an xG of 6.2.

None of these things count for much when we don’t have a win on the board yet, but that doesn’t mean they are not in and of themselves good things. It shows that we are transitioning to what - if it works - could be a more sustainable way of surviving and thriving in League One. A lot of our fans have decried the shit-on-a-stick football of late-era Bonner and Harris, so if you care about such things you should be encouraged by some elements of our play this season.

Will this translate into an uptick in results? To make this happen we will need to score more goals and cut out the defensive errors, both of which are quite obviously a lot easier said than done, particularly with our best attacking player thus far, Shayne Lavery, facing two months on the sidelines with a hamstring injury. On the defensive side, it’s frustrating that most of the goals we’ve let in have come from players committing basic errors, rather than through teething problems associated with playing out from the back - I can only think of one occasion, the first Bristol Rovers goal at the Memorial Stadium, where we have conceded directly as a result of overplaying.

Tactically there are probably a few things we could do better. We’re among the worst teams in the league for winning the ball back in the final third, and given that we often get a lot of players forward when we’re attacking, this leaves us vulnerable to counterattacks and means we often look very open when our own forays forward break down. We’re also not very good at winning aerial duels, suggesting a level of physical weakness that certainly wasn’t apparent in the Bonner days. We’re winning 17.6 duels per game, which represents a significant drop off compared to either of the last two seasons.

With this in mind, I think the return of Jordan Cousins could be a positive development. And yes, I know what you’re thinking, but hear me out. So far this season Korey Smith has mainly been tasked with holding the midfield together on his own, and I think the amount of pressure he’s been under has resulted in some inconsistent displays. A midfield three with Cousins at the base, Smith on the right and one of Brophy/Stokes on the left could offer a better balance between stability and attacking threat.

Monk’s bad habit

Perhaps the bigger question is how long Monk will be given to turn things around.

While it feels hopeless at the moment, it’s worth remembering that the league season is still in its infancy; in each of the last two seasons we have had four separate runs of five or more games without a win, and survived on both occasions. I would rather not test whether we can do this again, but the current situation is far from unrecoverable.

In general I like what Monk is trying to do and found the discussion about his future - and his role in putting together the squad - on Monday’s episode of Under the Abbey Stand to be an interesting one; I felt the chaps were quite generous in absolving him of blame for our issues of recruitment when it seems likely he played a big role in the signings of Smith and Gardner, who are probably two of our highest paid players ever and have as yet done little (or in Gardner’s case, literally nothing) to justify that expenditure. But I’m happy for him to be given some time to turn it around, not least because if we did change manager I’m unsure in which direction we would turn next.

Many U’s fans have questioned our summer transfer activity, the quality of the new arrivals and the policy of signing older, more experienced, players on short contracts rather than taking a more imaginative approach to recruitment and developing younger players to sell on. And much of that criticism is totally valid, though the age profile of the squad has dropped over the summer. But if you hold the view that we’re too short-term when it comes to signing players, I don’t think you can advocate for replacing Monk with another shit-on-a-stick merchant, who may get us out of trouble this season but is never going to improve the quality of the football on display. On the other hand, a manager wanting to play an expansive game will have to do so with the same group of limited players Monk has at his disposal and is likely to run into similar problems.

For now, I think Monk has some time to get the results he needs. But hopefully he will do it sooner rather than later - no one wants to experience déjà vu all over again.