Latics 0 – 3 Cambridge United: U’s good value for emphatic win

The first half of this game was 49 minutes of nothing.

Latics fans in the Main Stand Upper decided early to make their own entertainment, which was on the fresh theme, just 100-and-some-years-old, of criticising the referee. 

Latics 0

Cambridge United 3

Knight 55 (pen), Appéré (60, 67)

7,012 (481)

To be fair to the Main Stand grandees, the referee was the only game in town in the first 45 minutes – and he, too, was boring. He started by giving free kicks whenever any physical contact was initiated by anyone, then failed to give Latics left-back Jamie Robson even so much as a talking to after he elbowed Louis Appéré in the face.

The football was attritional and uninspired: hard work for the players, hard work for the crowd. The first corner of the game came 11 minutes into the second half. 

The two managers – Micky Mellon for Latics and Neil Harris for Cambridge – believe that you have to earn the right to play before you can actually play, that the football match can begin only when the battle is over.

One imagines that their post-match postmortem was one of the most animated ever seen in the managerial suite beneath the Main Stand of Boundary Park. I’d be shocked if the Cambridge bus wasn’t made to wait for at least a couple of hours as the two men savoured every moment of the first half, sometimes twice or three times over, seeing new patterns of blocks, new ways in which their players killed any chance of a football match for 49 intense minutes.

Latics fans have seen halves like that previously this season, and Mellon has often found a solution through tactical or personnel changes. Before he could do so again, Latics conceded their second brain-dead penalty in successive Saturdays and Cambridge got a second shortly afterwards,rendering Mellon’s intervention pointless.

First, Manny Monthé got himself into bother on the right edge of the Latics area. Appéré robbed him, played a one-two with James Brophy, and was into the area. Woods tripped him from behind – no question about it. Ben Knight put the penalty away.

Four minutes later, as the three Latics substitutes stripped off in the technical area, Brophy headed a far-post cross back into the centre of the six-yard area, and Appéré was there to finish it – the move, the game, Latics, the lot.

Mellon got his three subs on, but it was too late. Cambridge had worked Latics out during that attritional first half and absolutely had their number in the second. 

The Cambridge third was impressive for its ruthlessness. Ben Knight broke on the counter, carrying the ball from the halfway line with Jake Caprice, the Latics sentry, backtracking. Knight centred a weighted pass inside Latics midfielder Kai Payne to the on-running Appéré, who side-footed home from 12 yards.

This was Latics’ heaviest home defeat of the season, but they have no reason to beat themselves up about it. Cambridge were just better.

Latics: Mat Hudson, Tom Pett (Hannant 46), Donervon Daniels, Manny Monthé, Ryan Woods, Jack Stevens (FabióJaló 64), Joe Garner ((Joe Quigley 34) (Mike Fondop 64)), Kane Drummond (Kane Taylor 64), Jake Caprice, Luke Robson, Kai Payne

Subs not used: Tom Donaghy, Dynel Simeu

Cambridge United: Jake Eastwood, Liam Bennett, Dominic Ball (Nevitt 84), Kell Watts, James Brophy (Ben Purrington72), Louis Appéré (Shane Lavery 72), Ben Knight (Sulaiman Kaikai 72), Pelly Mpanzu, Shane McLoughlin (George Hoddle 81), Mamadou Jobe, James Gibbons

Subs not used: Benjamin Hughes, Zeno Ibsen Rossi