Kachunga stays as Cambridge plan busy summer

Elias Kachunga joined Cambridge in the summer of 2023

Cambridge United striker Elias Kachunga will stay with the club next season after triggering an appearances-based extension to the contract he signed last summer.

The 33-year-old former Huddersfield, Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton forward scored seven goals in 47 games for the U's this season.

His final goal of the campaign came in the 2-1 defeat at Burton Albion in their penultimate game which confirmed relegation to League Two.

Only 12 senior players remain under contract for next season and boss Neil Harris is expecting a busy summer in the transfer market.

"If you look at the players under contract, there's not lots - and there's a couple of players that have carried injuries throughout the season like Zeno Rossi and Glenn McConnell who won't be in the starting eleven and will need to go and play on loan somewhere," Harris told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

"Straight away, you are looking at a big rebuild over the summer but that's part of the excitement that fans should hopefully buy into, they love to see players that have been here for a while and are favourites but they also love to see new players as well."

Only four teams scored fewer goals than Cambridge's 45 and Harris said adding firepower at the top-end of the pitch would be a priority.

"We've not scored enough goals this year. Did we create enough chances? In a lot of games we have so we've got to make sure we find that clinical nature.

"Is that because League One defenders have been too good for us? Possibly. Certainly from the wide areas we've got to find some creativity and more assists.

"In the middle of the park, there are players that have been injured for a long time, Gary Gardner, Korey Smith's not featured a lot since January and Jordan (Cousins) and we've got to look for options, so pretty much I'm covering every position on the pitch," Harris added.