Mark Bonner: Cambridge aim to 'punch above our weight' this season

Mark Bonner is one of only two managers in League One that were appointed in 2020 - the other is Bolton's Ian Evatt

Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner has admitted the club have "aspirations bigger than our spend" ahead of the first game of a new League One season.

The U's only avoided relegation by beating Forest Green on the final day of the 2022-23 campaign.

Bonner still has to work within a budget smaller than many third-tier rivals, but has made six signings in a summer of change at the Abbey Stadium.

"We're having a right go to punch above our weight this season," he said.

"We feel this could be an open league that we really want to attack and finish as high up as we can.

"But there should be a real understanding that we're still striving to develop and improve, and the club and the owners are making unbelievable progress to keep doing that.

"That's why staying in the league last year was really important," Bonner told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

The U's begin their third consecutive season in the third tier with a home game against Oxford United on Saturday.

The board kept faith with Cambridge-born Bonner despite last season's struggles on the pitch and as the division's longest-serving manager/head coach - he was appointed on a permanent basis in March 2020 - he believes that stability is a positive thing for the club.

"We've certainly got aspirations bigger than our spend - and our spend is bigger than it's ever been, that's not me moaning about that, it's just the reality of where we are - so we'll always have a fairly small squad and a few injuries could cause us an issue, but that's the consequences of being where we are," he continued.

"When you look at a lot of clubs that have been a long time in one phase with one manager, and stability at boardroom level - you've seen the downsides of the opposite of that, they get repeated every year - we think it's a bit of a strength of ours and something we want to play on and build on.

"We know what we're building, we're not where we want to be but we're making really good progress That progress is quite quick.

"There's probably a limit to where we can get naturally with the resources we've got but there's certainly not a lack of ambition or mentality to do that."