Gareth Ainsworth bemoans Shrewsbury’s defending after Cambridge thumping

Gareth Ainsworth was dismayed with Shrewsbury’s defending in their heavy defeat at Cambridge.

The game was billed as a huge clash in the League One relegation battle with two of the bottom three sides going up against each other, and it ended with Cambridge claiming an emphatic 4-1 victory, which included a goal in the first minute of both halves.

It lifts the U’s to three points from the safety zone, while Ainsworth’s Shrews sit bottom, eight points adrift of the dotted line.

“Defensively, I can see now why the team is really struggling,” Ainsworth said. “We were very poor defensively. Cambridge haven’t ripped us apart with football, it’s been basic stuff.

“Two throw-ins they’ve got in on, which is criminal. A free-kick, we’re just not alive. It’s stuff that I’ve tried to work on but the boys aren’t switched on at times and we’ve got to be better than that. We must be better because we give ourselves mountains to climb.

“I’ve had to change it up a little bit today but it shouldn’t have been that much of a problem. I don’t want to run out of games checking the players out, we need to start getting points.

“The team that won was the team that was very pragmatic, very efficient at what they did, stuck crosses in the box, got their heads on the end of them. We didn’t do that at the other end and defended very poorly in our box. That was the game today. In both boxes we weren’t good enough.”

Following a disappointing loss at Reading on Tuesday, Cambridge boss Garry Monk was pleased with how his side responded.

“We’re trying to break it down into smaller parts, the next game but also the week,” Monk said. “We had a setback on Tuesday. It was important, not just for where we are in the league and the opposition we’re playing against, but it was important to respond. So (it’s) a really important win for us.

“We’ve talked about having the opportunities and not being clinical or ruthless with them. We were today. That was the difference, scoring good goals at the right times.

“We took our opportunities. In recent games that’s been a bit of an Achilles’ heel for us because we’ve had more than enough opportunities. Today we took them, then we had control of the game.

“We defended well enough and could have had a few more on the break.

“Scoring straight away lifts the crowd on a day like this, they got straight into it. That gave us a boost and that platform to kick on. The most important bit was winning and responding, because we need a lot more wins.”