Cambridge United boss Garry Monk says last weekend’s 6-1 derby defeat by Peterborough United has been “boxed off” as they look to return to winning ways.
The thrashing at the Weston Homes Stadium ended a five-match winning run by the U’s, which lifted them off the foot of the League One table.
Monk’s side now hope to put that behind them when they take on fourth-placed Barnsley at home on Saturday.
“It was a horrible result for us last week. The nature of what we do is you have to regroup very quickly and focus on what’s ahead, but not forgetting what’s just happened,” he told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.
“We boxed it off at the start of the week in terms of what that was and what it means for us, and are really gearing it towards a real response in this game, that’s the only action left for us after a game like that.
“We’ve tried to isolate it in that sense. But there needs to be a response in terms of the hurt we feel from an individual point of view, but also the hurt that our supporters would have felt from the game.”
Monk said being on the receiving end of such a scoreline in a derby game made it doubly necessary to bounce back positively.
However, they lost defender James Gibbons with a knee injury in the first half against Peterborough and he is likely to be out for 10 to 12 weeks.
“It’s not great but it’s better than what we thought it was going to be and hopefully Gibbo will be back for a good part of the season,” Monk said.
Dan Barton and Paul Digby also remain sidelined and on-loan midfielder Josh Stokes will not return to full training until next week or the week after after aggravating his own knee problem.
Cambridge bounced back strongly from 3-0 and 4-0 defeats by Lincoln City and Reading last season and experienced forward Elias Kachunga believes they are good enough to do the same this time.
“We’ve been there when we didn’t have the results we wanted and showed a reaction and we have to do the same again,” he said.
“You always in a season have patch where the results have maybe not gone the way you want them and it’s important in this moment to come back and hopefully we can start another good run.”