Garry Monk hailed a perfect week for his Cambridge side after they beat fellow Sky Bet League One strugglers Burton 1-0 to register their third victory in seven days.
The U’s picked up just one point from their first nine matches of the season, but are now just a single point from safety after Jordan Cousins’ 84th-minute strike saw them defeat the winless and mangerless Brewers.
Monk said: “This week couldn’t have gone much better for us. We knew we’d have a little bit less intensity today, and the expectation from the outside was that this would be the easiest of the three games we had in the last seven days.
“But we knew it would be really tough, especially with them changing their manager and changing their way of playing. We dealt with them well defensively, stuck at it and got our rewards.”
Monk added that the main difference between the teams was the U’s substitutes, saying: “They all contributed really well and helped get us over the line.”
One of those replacements, Cousins, had only been on the pitch for four minutes when he smashed the ball home from close range for the only goal of the match, following up after Burton keeper Max Crocombe had spilled a Danny Andrew free-kick.
Cambridge made most of the running in the first half, without regularly testing Crocombe.
Their best effort came from Liam Bennett, who latched onto a pass from Korey Smith but saw his shot across the goal parried away by Crocombe.
Burton, who parted company with head coach Mark Robinson on Wednesday, registered a single shot on target through Alex Bannon, with a low effort that Vincente Reyes turned around a post.
The second half was low on quality and chances, but Cousins’ late strike sent the home fans away happy.
Burton’s interim head coach Tom Hounsell was coy on whether he would be leading the team into next Saturday’s FA Cup tie against non-league Scarborough.
“My objective is to help the team, and I’m just taking it game by game,” said Hounsell. “Right now we’re just focused on getting positive results for this football club.”
On the match itself, Hounsell felt his players’ endeavours deserved greater reward.
“I’m really proud of the effort they’ve put in today,” he said. “The disappointing thing is when we got control of the match late on we weren’t able to turn that possession into good quality chances.
“We wanted to get the ball forward more quickly today and sustain pressure in their half, and I think that helped us stay in the game and begin to impose our style. But we’re frustrated to have conceded from a set-piece.”
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