\n<\/p>\n
Cambridge United secured automatic promotion from League Two despite Ben Knight missing a penalty in a goalless draw at Crewe.<\/b><\/p>\n
The U’s were awarded a first-half spot-kick when Sullay Kaikai was bundled over in the box, but Knight’s low effort was well saved by Ian Lawlor.<\/p>\n
With Salford City in with a chance of pipping them to third place if they could beat Crawley, it became an increasingly nervous afternoon for the away supporters. <\/p>\n
Josh March headed just wide from a corner as the home side rallied following Cambridge’s confident start.<\/p>\n
And he had another big chance when Mickey Demetriou nodded the ball down in the box, but his close-range effort was smothered by keeper Jake Eastwood.<\/p>\n
Former Crewe striker Elliott Nevitt was sent on at half-time by U’s boss Neil Harris and they had more shots on target than the home side, without being able to find a way past Lawlor.<\/p>\n
They almost won it in added time but Lawlor saved from a header by Kelland Watts and then blocked Dom Ball’s follow-up with his legs.<\/p>\n
A point, though, was enough to return Cambridge to League One at the first attempt following last season’s relegation, having conceded only 33 goals in their 46 games, with Salford unable to find a winner in their game either.<\/p>\n
“We weren’t the better team, but we had the better chances, even in the 96th minute, to win it outright,” boss Neil Harris told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.<\/p>\n
“That’s been us so many times this season, we’ve been the better team with loads of chances, but not scored at key moments – if we did, we’d have 100 points and have been up ages ago.<\/p>\n
“Ultimately it’s irrelevant, we got over the line. If you can’t win a game, don’t lose it, that’s my philosophy, and it proved absolutely correct.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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Cambridge United secured automatic promotion from League Two despite Ben Knight missing a penalty in a goalless draw at Crewe. The U’s were awarded a first-half spot-kick when Sullay Kaikai was bundled over in the box, but Knight’s low effort was well saved by Ian Lawlor. With Salford City in with a chance of pipping<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/outdoorthrill.cfd\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}