The Mardi Gras fireworks display eneded with blue and yellow to display support for Ukraine

Wycombe Wanderers 3 : 0 Cambridge United

Wycombe returned to winning ways after a seven-game drought with some ease 0n a wet Tuesday night at Adams Park. A Garath McCleary goal was sandwiched between two from an in form Anis Mehmeti.

Cambridge were not poor but bar one late clearance via a foot off the line, the Wanderer’s goal was rarely threatened depite the best efforts of Adam May on his 65th appearance for the club.

The night belonged however to the home side whose team performance was embelished by some solid individual performances by the two goal scorers and centre half Ryan Tafazolli.

However, it was Lewis Wing who caught the eye, or to be exact the tongue, of Chairboys boss Gareth Ainsworth after the game. The manager said Wing’s performance was the best of his five so far and there were promises of better to come.

Two goals in the first 15 minutes settled Wycombe nerves, the first a little fortunate. Daryl Horgan’s speculative but seemingly harmless effort took a deflection off Mehmeti’s head, then bounced just in front of United keeper Dimirat Mitov and caused him to misjudge the bounce.

The goal was soon credited to Mehmeti who was clearly indicating his ‘noggin’ to the watching boffins as he celebrated what he had already deemed his goal!

Three minutes later on the quarter hour, Mehmeti produced some wizardry down the Wycombe left. His cross was brilliantly met by Garath McCleary for Wycombe’s second. McCleary made the finish look much easier than it was ,but the goal indicated that both men had refound both form and perhaps more importantly confidence after the seven game run.

However nobody among the 4,083 attendance could relax. Wycome had recently surrendered TWO two goal leads in one game against Cheltenham in that 5-5 draw.

Minds could have been put at rest by a third goal, but a brilliant tackle by George Williams stopped the U’s defence being breached, and McCleary shot woefully wide when clean through on the half hour with a chance that would have been a gift for their Welsh forward Sam Vokes on St Davids Day.

United had some good spells and Shilow Tracey nearly got in behind the back four but those good spells lacked any punch and a previosuly leaky Chairboys back line was relatively error free in the rain.

St Davids Day had a lovely one on one battle between Wycombe’s  Sam Vokes, the Englishman who became Welsh, and Cambridge’s Lloyd Jones, the Welshman who became English, the man who headed eastward escaping a yellow for wrestling Vokes to the ground just before half time.

Even after the break, Wycombe seemed hungrier. 12 minutes in, Tafazolli rose highest but was unable to direct his header on target.  In one of his most impressive performances, he was also on hand defensivle to block a powerful effort from Harrison Dunk.

Wing and David Wheeler both fired wide with half chances before the U’s best chance of the match was cleared 18 inches away from the line after a penalty box stramash with eight to go.

This came during United’s best spall of the second hald and the loss of a breakaway goal symbolised their night. McCleary hared down the left and creditably kept his feet after a foul that would have drawn a card and enabled his side to run the clock down.

He recovered his equilibrium and provided a superb cross for Mehmati to tap in and seal the three goal margin,

Ainsworth was understandably proud of  his charges’ work both the clean much overdue sheet but also the attacking threat:

“There’s three internationals in that team and there’s one probably international when he (Mehmeti) starts playing for Albania.

“You can’t dismiss the attacking players. Those boys have got Lewis Wing in behind them. His best performance for us so far. We’re growing as a team.”

And Lewis Wing is growing as a Chairboy.

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