Money reveals he felt things didn’t go for his side against Luton

The U’s hit the woodwork three times and had two penalty appeals turned down, but they were awarded one spot-kick and the lion’s share of free-kicks as they were also the beneficiaries of a number of strange decisions on the day.

On the penalty calls, he said: “You saw them as well as I did. You keep trying to put me on the spot and get me in trouble.

“The only thing I would say is that the first penalty is a red card as well, which changes the game significantly, so that’s the way it is.”

With Town having clinically taken a two-goal lead, two United goals in the space of a minute turned the game on its head as the U’s dominated the closing stages, and Money was disappointed his side hadn’t been able to find a winner and prevent a replay.

He said: “When we scored the first one, we did get the second one earlier enough to maybe go on and win it, but we always knew that to get the second one meant a possible replay, but we’ve done everything we can to go and win it and just didn’t get the breaks.

“I didn’t think the game went for us at any time really to be honest. I think we just have to take it as it comes.”

With only a thin squad, Money had been forced to name a massively strong side, especially with a long spell of inactivity due to the recent bad weather.

“Anybody who was suspicious about how we felt about the tournament should have been here today,” he continued.

“I think the main thing for us today was to get everyone back on the pitch, we hadn’t played for two weeks and to put in that type of performance, given our period of inactivity, was outstanding and a credit to all of the players.

“And we got good minutes into everybody and that was our main objective, if we could have won the game on top of that, that would have been a bonus.

“But we just have to take it as it comes and play football because we just love playing football, because that’s just the way it’s going to be.”

But he was left to bemoan the toll the competition had taken on his squad, with defender Tom Bonner being stretchered from the field with a serious leg injury in the first half.

Money said: “I’ve taken a lot of criticism for talking out about the problems that this tournament can cause and I understand that. People are entitled to their opinions, as am I, but we now see what the problems are that can be created and of course the worst thing that’s happened to us is the injury to Bonner who has been an absolutely outstanding professional from day one and waited for his chance and at a time when we wanted to rotate the three of them, through this next period, it looks as though he’s gone and got a significant injury, so I guess that’s the only thing really we should be thinking about, because when you look at that everything else pales into insignificance.”

And on the condition of Bonner, he added: “I really don’t know just at the minute, but I have to say it doesn’t look very good.”