Forest Green ground out a 1-0 win at the Trade Recruitment Stadium on Saturday to end United's run of twelve games without defeat, and Rovers boss Jim Harvey declared himself "really proud" of the performance.
"For a long while we have been playing well and not getting the results but that's four wins on the bounce, and although we were short on players today and it was very warm we got a result, which fully reflects our abilities," he said.
"Cambridge have been going well and are second in the league, and we've come here and are worthy winners. If we had a bit more control in the second half we could have pinched a second or third one and wrapped it up. The two lads in the centre of defence have played the last eight to ten games together and played really well and that gives us a springboard for the rest of the team to move on from. I'm delighted with all my players today they have been superb."
Andy Mangan scored the decisive goal in the 14th minute and was a threat throughout the game, and Harvey thought his leading scorer should have added more to his tally.
"He took his goal well but I am a bit disappointed he didn't add to that goal in the second half, which would have wrapped the game up for us. The pattern of the game broke up in the second half," he added.
"Cambridge have gone tally-ho up the pitch, desperate to get back into the game, throwing bodies forward, cheating, leaving people up the field. It destroys the pattern and then it was just a case of us looking to pick them off with a counter attack, which we should have done. We played good football on the approach play, but it was in the final third when we could've finished them off that we lacked a little bit."
Warming to his theme, Harvey continued, "We got nothing from the officials. We are a footballing team - we are not going to come here and kick and battle, we will play football and beat teams that way, the right way.
"We were put under severe pressure and the referee didn't deal it with and we end up with four or five players booked in a game that hasn't warranted that. I thought he had a poor game today," he added. "The lad Reason didn't get booked, yet the referee was stopping the game and counting to him the fouls that he had made and he just had a quiet word with him, yet some of the decisions for our bookings were shocking.
"I thought we were really up against it, yet when we went to Torquay we had a terrific referee who wasn't influenced by the crowd and he put in a really good performance, but I thought we had to battle against everything today. I encourage my teams to play within the laws of the game; be competitive but play the game in the right manner. So it wasn't a case of us losing anything. I thought we were unfairly fouled.
"We have to get on with an honest performance and we can't influence what the referee decides to do, so extreme provocation we kept our cool, did our job and should have won by a bigger margin. Cambridge are a big club, an ex-Football League club with all the resources they've got, so to come here and beat them and to take four points from them this year is a tremendous effort for Forest Green Rovers."
United are next in action at Stevenage Borough on Tuesday (7.45pm). This match is all-ticket for U's fans so please do NOT travel if you do not have a ticket. Remaining tickets for this match and the one at Kettering on Easter Monday, which is also all-ticket for away fans, are on sale from our ticket office - see this article for details.
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