Exeter City fight hard to earn another impressive win
“To win as we are with a clean sheet, with a team spirit and desire not to be beat and to be hard to peg back, it is a brilliant attitude to have.”
Exeter City manager Gary Caldwell hailed his side’s character as they climbed to seventh in the League One table with a hard-fought win over luckless Cambridge at St James Park. The Grecians were well short of their best and had to hang in the second half, but the 1-0 win extended their unbeaten run to five – having not conceded at all in the spell.
Ryan Woods struck his first goal since November 2017 to earn City the win, firing into the top corner after a corner wasn’t dealt with by the U’s. Exeter could have been further ahead, but were on the back foot after the break as energy-sapping away trips to Wigan and Leyton Orient in the past week showed.
But Cambridge couldn’t find a way to goal as once again City’s backline held firm to earn another vital three points, as only goal difference sees them outside the play-offs ahead of the second international break of the campaign. Cambridge’s defeat kept them bottom with just a solitary point, and was a seventh loss in a row and they stretched their winless run to 19 dating back to April 1, and once again drew a blank in front of goal.
“I thought we were very good in the first half and we need to understand that, in that moment against a team that is struggling, we need to put the game to bed and we should have been two or three up,” Caldwell said.
“What the players done this week is remarkable, the squad isn’t big in numbers, we had to play players running on a game too much and you can see that second half. Our final third play was a little bit loose and we weren’t as incisive as we wanted to be, but we had total control of the game. They came and set up 5-3-2, played very direct, so we had to deal with a lot of long balls, which I thought we dealt with really well.
“Some of our build-up was extremely good without doing enough with it and that is one area, along with other areas, we have to improve as a team. Second half, I thought we looked tired. A lot of players have played more minutes than we would have liked, but the character, the spirit and fight to keep a clean sheet and get another victory was incredible.”
