Simon Russell spoke to cambridgeunited.com reporter David Gray after the U's 2-2 draw with Crawley Town last night, in which he scored his first goal for the Club. He commented:

"We didn't start tonight and it showed in the early goals they got. We spoke about it at half time, all of us sat back and let them come on to us and they caught us out with two quick fire goals and then we were up against it. It shows the character at this Club how we fought to come back into the game more or less straight away.

"After how well he played for us at the end of last season, it's ironic that it was Scott's (Neilson) mistake that led to us getting us back into it. Conal Platt dispossesed him and the way we broke was unbelievable. I think it was four on two and this gave Platty options. Credit goes to Adam Miller for an intelligent run which took Pablo Mills out of it to allow me to get on a great weighted ball from Platty to knock it home.

"That move showed that little bit extra we have in our armoury this year. Pace and power along with intelligence going forward is going to cause the opposition a lot of problems in the coming months. We have a lot of clever footballing players at the club and tonight showed that we can use that to get results playing a type of football the fans want to see.

"We also have great fitness levels amongst the lads and I think tonight that showed, we looked a lot fitter than Crawley late on and as the season progresses that's another weapon we can use to get more wins under our belts.

"The manager is one who likes to get the ball down and play football at the right times in the right areas and that showed in some great passages of play when the link up play caused Crawley all kinds of problems. That helps the likes of us midfielders getting the balls back from the likes of Robbie Willmott quickly and utilising the width to launch another attack. It puts the opposition on the back foot immediately and creates chances.

"We know that Southport will be a different challenge to our last two games but even if they come and shut up shop we have to deal with that and have that bit of patience to wait and open up teams. There will be plenty of teams that will come to the Abbey and see us as a big side. We know have the players to combat that and there will always be chances created with the squad we have here."

Interview by David Gray

[Match report] [Fixture list] [League table]

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.

WJ170810 web@cambridge-united.co.uk