After giving most of the squad a run out at King's Lynn on Saturday, Gary Brabin is likely to start giving players more match time in the forthcoming games, starting tonight at Cambridge City (7.45pm).

"I've got to start giving people more minutes," he told cambridgeunited.com.

"On Saturday I tried to base the team on what people had been doing in training, and now I have to start giving people a bit more time and pushing them a bit more, so there will be a few disappointed tonight but there are enough games ahead for everyone.

"I need to start pushing people now towards playing a comfortable 90 minutes."

Cambridge City are celebrating their 100th year, but there were no celebrations in March when they were relegated by the Conference from the Blue Square South because their Milton Road ground did not achieve a category B ground rating.

City appealed to the Football Association against the decision but it was upheld in May and they will play this season in the Southern League.

However Brabin does not believe off-field matters will have affected the quality of the opposition we can expect this evening: "As far as I'm concerned the last competitive ball they kicked was in the league below this one, which is a good competitive league. Quite a few teams have shown when they've come out of those leagues that there's not much difference and they've survived OK, so it should be a good test for us."

Brabin is looking for the players to build on the best spells of the game at King's Lynn, when United came from behind to lead 2-1 entering the final ten minutes, but ended up losing 2-1 due to late defensive mistakes.

"The big plus for me was the middle hour of the game, when I thought we played some fantastic football and we looked fit and strong and quick," he said. "It took us 10-15 minutes to get started but I was very impressed with that hour and it gave me a lot to be happy about.

"Obviously I had to change the side around a little bit during the game so it's not fair to judge people, and in the last 10-15 minutes we made individual errors that cost us the game, but it's best to get those ironed out straightaway and we know the things we have to work on in training."

Apart from Danny Brown, who is recuperating from a shoulder operation, Brabin can choose from a full squad, although Darren Quinton (above) is being reintroduced carefully after missing two-thirds of last season while recovering from a serious knee injury.

"We're taking it easy with him and we don't want to be pushing him because he's been out injured for a long time," explained the manager. "He's trained hard and I just have to be sensible with him."

The trialists will stay with the squad this week, with decisions likely to be made nearer the weekend.

The match kicks off at 7.45pm and you can find directions and details here.

Question for the manager?
Ask him here

Make Your Click Count For The U's - talk about it on the Message Board!

You are respectfully reminded that any article, as with all content on this website, unless otherwise stated, is subject to copyright © and the Official Cambridge United Website must be acknowledged as the original source including all quotes.

AT080715