Cambridge United boss Mark Bonner said his side 'worked their socks off' but ultimately were beaten by a superior team as Ipswich Town battled for a 3-0 win over the U's at Portman Road last night.
Bonner's men made it hard for the high-flying Blues, sitting deep and defending well until the 72nd minute, when Tyreece John-Jules broke the deadlock.
Two more late goals from Kyle Edwards gave Town an impressive margin of victory, but Bonner said he was proud of his team's effort.
He explained: “(I’m) only disappointed because we lost but let’s be honest our season won’t be defined by night’s like this.
“If anyone finishes above them in the league they’ve done well, they’re a brilliant team.
“One of the games we watched in build up to this was the one at Accrington (2-0 Ipswich win) and they would have felt they were bang in the game and in a brilliant position until they make the substitutions they can.
“I thought we worked our socks off to be in that game. It sounds silly to say that we’ve worked so hard to lose 3-0.
“We were awkward, we made it really difficult for them to create chances – I thought we did that really well.
“In the second half we ended up a bit deep, which is obvious. They get lots of numbers around the ball and they counter press really well.
“We couldn’t quite get out and as a consequence of that the ball can land anywhere. The goals are a bit unfortunate really, but it’s probably just a consequence of the pressure.
“Our organisation and work ethic was very good but we weren’t able to bring enough moments to bring control in the second half. One through our own errors and then when you do get the ball back you’re absolutely spent so it’s hard to make quick decisions and have the awareness to find your quick passes.
"You know you’re going to have to come here and make quite a lot out of quite a little in terms of chances and ball possession – and we weren’t quite able to do that.
“The clock wouldn’t tick quite fast enough for us in the second half unfortunately! No disgrace at all, I think they’re a brilliant team flooded with excellent players that just kept getting stronger as the game went on.
“Tonight we had a few big players missing and we were unable to make those sort of changes that we might have been able to.”
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