Northwich Victoria manager Dino Maamria shared his thoughts on Saturday's game, when his side lost 2-0 to the U's but knew they were already safe from relegation following their excellent win at Stevenage last Tuesday.

Maamria has overseen a remarkable upturn in his club's fortunes on the pitch and he pointed back to our meeting in November as a key moment: "When we played you at the Abbey we were the better side and we lost, but that was really a turning point for us because we beat Rushden in the next match and the belief that I had that we could stay up started to spread to the players and the supporters.

"I have players here that can play football," added the former Doncaster, Stevenage and Rushden striker, "and we were never going to succeed in keeping our place in this league by changing the way we play.

"There's no point in us throwing it long or trying to kick teams off the pitch, we've just knuckled down and did what we had to do - just get the ball down and play. That's proper football and that has helped us in maintaining a fantastic support here because people like to see proper football."

Clearly ambitious to carry the Vics' upturn into next season, Maamria continued, "I look at where Cambridge were last season and where we are this year, and the impossible is nothing. We could emulate your fantastic achievements this year.

"You have to dream in life as well as in football. I'll have a strong squad next season and they will work very hard through pre-season to be ready for the challenge from day one."

Generous in his assessment of Cambridge United's prospects in the play-off semi-finals, Maamria commented, "I played at Rushden with Mark Albrighton and I said to him before the game that I think you are the best team out of the four in the play-offs this season.

"We have played all of them in the last month or so and every game apart from today we have dominated. Today was an exception because with what our lads had achieved on Tuesday it was hard to motivate them. It was the first time this season that they had run out under no pressure and perhaps some of them took their foot off the gas a bit.

"Despite the changes you made, I think you showed today how good your strength in depth is and how you can perform and punish teams. So on what I have seen you are very capable of obtaining promotion and I hope you succeed."

Interview by David Gray

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