TISDALE EYES UP TOP THREE
PAUL Tisdale’s Exeter City are eying up a late surge towards automatic promotion.
Two late goals kept Exeter hot on the heels of the top three as they stole a vital three points in their race for promotion.
They are just two points off the pace after goals from Jayden Stockley, Matt Jay and Jake Taylor led them to victory at the Abbey Stadium.
That meant Jabo Ibehre and George Maris goals were in vain for the hosts.
Tisdale admitted: “We’re looking at third place, that has to be our focus.
“We have to concentrate on Accrington next week, it doesn’t need saying really, it’s going to be a tough game up there.
“We’re doing pretty well at the moment with a whole bunch of players out injured and I’m very proud of them.
“It was all about the result and I’m delighted we picked up another three points.
“It was a game of 100 minutes plus and we did the important thing which is score more goals than them.”
Shot-stopper Christy Pym was called into action early to deny U’s striker Jevani Brown.
Pym was then forced into a fine reaction stop to keep out Greg Taylor’s header.
The visitors were then indebted to Dean Moxey’s knee for keeping out Ibehre’s header on the line.
However, Ibehre was not to be denied when he converted Brad Halliday’s near-post cross just before the break.
The Grecians levelled through Stockley’s fine header just before the hour.
But eight minutes later the U’s reclaimed their lead as Maris hit his third in as many games.
Exeter were caught on the counter and got lucky when Brown fired against the bar.
And the U’s looked likely to pick up all threee points before a late double for the visitors silenced the home crowd.
First substitute Jay levelled things up after Stockley’s blocked effort fell kindly for him to net.
And then Jake Taylor reacted first in the box to steal the points with just three minutes left on the clock.
But caretaker Cambridge manager Joe Dunne was still impressed, saying: “I’m proud of the team for contributing to what was a great game of football.
“Take away the little spell at the end where they got their two goals when we switched off, I was really pleased with how we performed.
“We’re working really hard to be more attacking in games. I want us to play that front-foot football and I think we saw that a lot against a team going for automatic promotion.
“We got three big injuries during the game and if you look at those key moments after the game restarted, we lost those.
“We just needed to tighten up, we didn’t and we got punished but I don’t want to take away from what was a good performance.”
CAMBRIDGE: (4-4-2): Forde 5, Halliday 7, Taft 6, Taylor 6 (Legge 89, N/A), Carroll 6, Amoo 6 (Davies 83, 6), Maris 8, Deegan 6, Dunk 7, Brown 7, Ibehre 7 (Corr 55, 6) Subs not used: Mitov, Legge, O'Neil, Waters, Lewis
EXETER: (4-4-2): Pym 6, Sweeney 5, Moxey 6, Storey 6, Woodman 6 (Wilson 79, 5), James 6, Tillson 5, Taylor 7, Boateng 7 (Croll 90+2, N/A), Simpson 4 (Jay 45, 7), Stockley 7 Subs not
used: Jones, Archibald-Henville, Brunt, Loft