Ugly win gets the job Dunne for Joe

JOE Dunne was relieved to watch Cambridge win ugly against Macclesfield after seeing recent results go against his team.

The U’s won 1-0 to earn their first home win in League Two since August 11.

Jabo Ibehre scored nine minutes from the end to break the deadlock in a game lacking many clear chances, though it came only seconds after Ben Stephens had hit the bar at the other end with a terrific effort from the edge of the box.

Liam O’Neil slotted the pass through to sub Ibehre, who fired across Rhys Taylor to net on his return from injury.

“That was a grind,” Dunne said. “There wasn’t much in it but you’ve got to win those ones.

“We’ve earned the right over the last few weeks to not play ever so well.

“I don’t like playing like that, the win at the end of it is a bonus. I’ve told the players we’ve got to be better than that.

“From where we’ve been and what we’ve done, we’ve been on the end of one or two of those. Today was all about winning; taking seven points from nine this week is a very good week.”

Macclesfield’s best chance came in the third minute when Peter Vincenti’s cross was flicked on to Harry Smith, whose header was kept out one-handed by keeper David Forde.

At the other end, Reggie Lambe’s swerving effort required tipping over by Macclesfield keeper Taylor after 13 minutes.

One of Macclesfield’s joint caretaker bosses Neil Howarth saw an improvement from their midweek hammering against Northampton but took little solace from another defeat.

“We had to apologise on Tuesday for the performance. I don’t feel like we have to apologise today,” Howarth said. “We’ve done a lot of good things, but ultimately we’ve lost again. We’ve not kept a clean sheet so it’s something that hurts at the end of a horrendous week.

“It’s difficult to take positives out of it, even though I felt there was only one team going to win it as the second half was progressing.

“I thought we’d scored and seconds later we’ve got done. It was the first time in the whole match where we lost our shape, just two bad decisions and the ball’s in the back of our net. We could have been still celebrating a goal.”