Cambridge United head coach gives his verdict on picking up a point at Charlton Athletic

Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner was happy to leave The Valley with a point.

Charlton went ahead in yesterday’s game through Scott Fraser but Harvey Knibbs levelled for the U’s, who had lost their last three League One matches on the road.

Bonner said: “In the first half the amount of [Charlton] possession was something like 74 per cent to 26 – we don’t get overly concerned by that unless it’s in a really dangerous area. And as the half went on it became more dangerous.

“Probably the [Charlton] goal comes from constant pressure on our goal. But we defended our box and crosses quite well – perhaps the easiest moment to defend is the one that ends up in our goal.

“I’m delighted that we responded. We had moments where we needed to be more clinical in the first half, we should’ve scored after 30 seconds, and had we made better use of some of those counter-attacks we might have created a few more chances ourselves.

“We knew today that the possession was always going to be Charlton’s and not ours.

“Second half we got good control of the game and we had a lot more ball. There was a lot less threat on our goal until the dying stages when, if you haven’t seen the game off, then you know you’re going to be made to defend late on when you’ve got the pace and power of the front three before Blackett-Taylor came off.

“We made a brilliant block in our goalmouth right towards the end, Lloyd Jones, and scrambled for our lives. We’re actually really pleased with a point.

“The creation of chances in the first half was theirs but I don’t think there has been a clearcut chance in the game, other than the goal. We’ve had a couple we should do a bit better with. We were quite dominant for a spell in the second half when maybe we could push to take something from it.

“Ben has got them playing some brilliant football. We played against Swindon in the cup last season and played against a similar sort of style and realised how difficult it was, on a really big pitch it’s tough to contain sometimes – the style and the way they move the ball.”

PICTURE: PAUL EDWARDS