Neil Harris was frustrated and disappointed after Cambridge suffered a 2-0 League One defeat at home to Leyton Orient.
Goals after half-time by Jordan Brown and Daniel Agyei – the latter’s first for the club – secured victory for the O’s at the Abbey Stadium as Richie Wellens’ side made it through their three Christmas games unbeaten and without conceding a goal.
Cambridge suffered their first two losses under Harris in that time, with their other match at Stevenage on Friday postponed.
“I’ve told the players what I thought and left them in no uncertain terms in the changing room,” Harris said.
“In my first four games in charge we’ve been outstanding. We’ve picked up seven points against three of the four top-10 sides.
“Tonight we took a step backwards. The level of performance, individually and collectively was nowhere near what we’ve produced in the first four games.
“The biggest disappointment is a lack of character and strength in the performance.
“I’m not used to my teams being out-competed at times. I don’t like it. I won’t accept it and I certainly won’t accept it here at the Abbey.
“At times we looked a little bit vulnerable, which I’d seen in games I’d watched earlier in the season.
“We know we need to eradicate that quickly. But I’m not going to bemoan the group too much because the first month has been really impressive.
“We gave two really poor goals away, really soft goals. I don’t want to talk about individual mistakes. All I said to the group is ‘individually and collectively we have to be strong and what we can’t do is make repetitive mistakes’.”
Wellens praised his Orient side’s dominance after the break, when the two goals arrived.
“That 25-minute spell was really, really good,” said Wellens.
“Defensively (we were) very solid all game, I can’t remember really conceding a chance to a team that are difficult to beat here and we could have had a couple more goals.
“The supporters can see straight away what a threat he (Agyei) carries. We’ve signed him because he can play right, left and centre-forward.
“He’ll grow in confidence, it’s his first goal in months because he’s been out injured.
“He can take a lot from that game in terms of confidence from his goal but a lot from it physically. We are a hard team to play up front for.
“What I ask of them sets up the rest of the team and if the strikers don’t do it, it has a knock-on effect for the rest of our team.
“Our back four are not being overworked all the time. That was a massive benchmark of us last year and it’s non-negotiable.”
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