Cambridge United revolution

Breaking News

Bryan Swanson has been tipped off that the real reason Cambridge United board couldn't give Krupesh the chance to increase his maximum age offering is because the chairman Paul Barry has been embezzling funds from the club.

He has not known success on this level since his involvement with the U's and it seems he has screwed up the club, taking £500,000 from the club.

We have Krupesh Shah with Bryan Swanson.

Bryan: Krupesh this is unbelievable news. It seems you knew deep down there was something wrong and that is why you actually told the Chairman to "F*ck off".
Krupesh: Bryan you're absolutely right. I found out what was going on and confronted him as soon as I knew. He was so shocked a football manager figured out what he was doing, thinking that I have no brains but I knew it all along.

Bryan: What does this mean for the club now? Where are you headed? What will you do?
Krupesh: Well I set out to take this club to the top and that's where we will go, with me at the helm. Michael Stone did an amazing job and I want to apologise to everyone at the club for my selfish actions. I have spoken to the chairman and he has agreed to put the money back in to the club over the next 3 years. This means though that maximum wages won't increase and I will probably lose my son on a free transfer at the end of the season. But I am making a promise right here right now. When we get to the Premier League I will buy him back and show him that we will become world beaters.

Bryan: Wow it has been an incredible month here with many not knowing where you had gone but why didnt you report the Chairman for what he was doing?? Surely getting him locked up would be a priority?
Krupesh: Listen this man has really messed up and got greedy but he was the one person that put his trust in me to take this team and club forward. I wanted to give him one chance to do right and he has. Lets move on from all of this and really kick on with the club. We have an amazing year ahead of us and promotion is the only option for this club.

Krupesh: Thanks for taking the time to speak to me Bryan I hope this has cleared up a lot and now we can concentrate on the football at this club.

Having returned back to the club after a month away I realised just how much I missed this club and the fans. Support has really grown for us over the last 2 years and we really need to push on. The players are enjoying life in League One and really found themselves playing well. My first game back was against Peterborough, managed by Paul Jewel and he decided that we weren't going to survive. That riled me and the boys uo and we put in a performance to make him look like an utter tw*t.

We battered them 5-1 away from home and it was an amazing feeling to be back in charge of this lot. There was still one thing weighing on my mind. I needed to secure my son to this club, he was central to our success but the bloody chairman screwed us. I decided I had to go and ask one more time to get the maximum wages increased but I wasn't hopeful.

Something incredible happened during my meeting with Paul. He actually said yes! He improved the maximum wage we could offer from £4,100 to an INSANE £29,500. How the hell did he do this? Then I remembered. He just pumped money in to the club, money he tried to steal so I guess he owed me one and couldn't say no. I ran out of the room and got the legal team to draw up a new contract to offer to my son and his agent. Before I could even suggest what I wanted to offer his agent had prepared a document saying what they want. Man this wasnt going to come cheap but I knew I needed him in the team. He was England's future keeper and our rock in the team.

He wanted £17,000 a year, a yearly wage rise of 10%, a relegation release clause of £2.1 million, a promotion rise of 25%, a team of the year bonus of £200,000, a relegation avoidance bonus of £200,000 and a clean sheet bonus of £4,000.

There was no way we could afford to give him this, it would kill our finances and I had to negotiate. His agent was getting annoyed but I needed to tie Krups Jr down to a long term contract. The final offer was £16,500 a year until 2019, yearly wage rise of 5%, relegation release clause of £2.1 million, promotion wage rise of 20%, a clean sheet bonus of £3,250 and an avoid relegation bonus of £140,000 as well as paying a loyalty fee of £115,000. For a League One club this was madness but I felt I had no choice but to do this.

Some crazy wages there :o But he's better than any keeper you can get your hands on, so probably worth it

2 month review

Well it's been a mad two months since I've come back to the club. I was passed up for the Real Sociedad job but I don't see myself anywhere else for now and having sorted the Chairman out I was able to concentrate on the club and getting results, building on the good start that my ass man had.

After a good start in the League we faced a tough run coming up, playing teams in all different positions as well as trying to cope with cup competitions. We lost our first game in the league against Bradford 2-1. We dominated but fell behind only to equalise in the 89th minute. I thought thank god we've rescued a point only for Dean Bowditch to latch on to a long ball and smash home the winner for Bradford in the 92nd minute. We used to have problems conceding late late goals and I was praying it hadn't started again.

We beat Championship side Bristol City in the 2nd round of the Capital One Cup and got drawn against Man City in the 3rd round. They had won the league 3 years in a row but it was going to be a good challenge and I was looking forward to it.

We won 4 games in the league after this, drawing 1 and winning in the JPT 1st round. Then we played Yeovil in the league and lost again 2-1. We deserved to lose and I made sure they players knew that. Then it was time for the game against Man City and man I was excited. After a goalless first half, I thought hang on we could snatch something here and made some tactical changes to go more attacking after being cautious in the first half. Unfortunately City scored first but at this point we went gung ho and scored a scorching equaliser in the 84th minute. We had a chance to win it in the 88th minute but missed and went to extra time. Within 4 minutes City scored again and that was it. City started with a strong team - Aguero, Silva, Maicon, Kolarov, Kaka and Milner. I was proud of the way we played and gave me hope against bigger teams in the future, especially when we get promoted to the Premier League.

After that game against City, we won 2 in the league and drew 2. One of those draws was against league leaders Torquay away from home and at this stage in the season I was pleased with this because they were playing damn well. They are now 3 points clear at the top with a game in hand and Yeovil are 2 points behind us in 3rd but they also have a game in hand and this means we could lose 2nd place to them if we slack off.



It was during these 2 months that there had been some managerial casualties. Leeds, even though they are 2nd in the Championship lost Owen Coyle as he left to manage QPR. This opened up the job at Leeds and I have been linked with it, although Chris Powell is the favourite. West Ham have sacked their manager as well and are 11th in the Championship. Henning Berg is the favourite and I have been linked again but I really can not leave Cambridge for these clubs even if I get the offers. My plan is to make Cambridge United a team that can compete in Europe and in the Premier League and I will take them as far as I can so no matter which team comes asking I have decided from now on to ignore all job speculation, unless of course I am about to get fired!

Push for the title, and don't go to leeds </3.

From mid-October til the end of December we had some ups and downs. We got to the 3rd round of the FA Cup and drew the first leg against Sunderland, with Danny Graham being the thorn in our side. The JPT quarter final wasn't so great because we lost 2-1 to Ipswich and they had beaten us in the league as well. This really was a disappointment because we reached the final of the JPT while we were in League Two but now we got knocked out pretty early on and I wanted to win this trophy.

We picked up a few draws in the league but the strong performances were kept up but we never scored more than 3 goals during this period and it really rankles that the goalscoring ability isn't as high as it could be. The positive thing that I have seen is that we have been able to keep a few clean sheets here and there, showing an improvement in our defensive work.

As January started, we were linked to several different players as usual but there were a few I had seen that had been transfer listed and I just had to get my hands on them. Gael Kakuta, Mohamed Bangura, Larnell Cole and Harry Kane all joined the club for a combined fee of £600,000. These signings represented a new attacking front for the club and hopefully will bring more goals for the club. They are also players that will be part of the squad as we reach the Championship, something some of the current players will not be able to do. As our loan Goalkeeper left after not getting enough games, we signed Paul Gallacher from Hearts on a free transfer and he will serve to be a good back up.

We kept up the pressure on Torquay and managed to leapfrog them in to 1st place in the league. By the end of January, despite a loss and a draw in 3 league fixtures, we stretched our lead to 12 points at the top of the table with 13 games left to play. We lost away at the Stadium of Light 2-1 to Sunderland, again with Danny Graham scoring both goals and he really had p*ssed me off. We were all over them in the 2nd leg but couldnt score from all the chances we created.

Heading in to the final 13 games of the season and having nothing but the league to concentrate on I felt we had the squad and ability to really take the spoils in at least 10 of the 13 games and claim our 3rd back-to-back promotion. With such a commanding lead already in our grasp I had to keep the squad focused on the task at hand but not put too much pressure on them. They have been an awesome group of players and there are still some with me who have been with the club since the days in the Blue Square Premier League.

This season we have had contributions from all over the park and these are the statistics of the players so far.

The final 13 games brought a mixed bag of results for the U's. The aim was to go all out and get as many points as possible, with an aim of 10 wins. This was maybe asking too much of a squad that I couldn't fault. We won 9 of those games, drew 2 and lost 2. One of those losses was against relegation threatened Preston and I lost my head at the squad and at Johnny Dunleavy for getting sent off. We couldn't have played worse than we did in that game but unfortunately we had an even worse performance against Northampton Town. They had 15 shots on goal, 8 on target. We had a measly 6 shots and only TWO on target. That was dismal for a team supposedly on top of the league.

The bright side followed as we went on a good goal scoring run following that result, scoring 18 goals in 6 games.

At the end of the season we finished top by 20 points with Stevenage and Notts County promoted along with us. We had only gone and done it. 3 back to back promotions, bringing in quality players along the way to help us in our battle in the Championship.

It could be that we don't get the 4th promotion straight away and I was bracing myself for a tougher season than any we had before. I signed defender Adam Smith from Tottenham Hotspur to give us much needed improvements at the RB/LB position as well as attempting to bring in Mattheus from Hoffenheim after they signed him on a free two seasons ago.



The strength of the squad is average. We have a few top players but there are some positions that need reinforcements and the depth of the squad isn't as strong as it could be. The area that needs most improvements is probably in midfield. We have some good young talent but we need some experienced players ready to play in the Championship.

This season we may not be pushing for automatic promotion but I definitely wanted to turn us into contenders. To do that we needed backing from the board and they gave me a wage budget of £300,000 and a transfer budget of £3.4million.

We also announced a new partnership with Tottenham Hotspur and hopefully this would allow us to get one or two of their players on loan to strengthen our chances.

AFter 3 promotions on the run the board have offered me a new 5 year contract with a wage of £1,800 per week. I had no worries about the money and was delighted to get such a long offer and accepted it with no hesitations.



Andros Townsend has joined us on loan, strengthening the wing power we have and we just submitted a loan bid for Mattheus to join as well. He will take the Championship by storm if he decides to join and this boosts our chances massively. We signed Kirk Broadfoot on a free transfer as this provides some depth to our defence.

Congrats on the new contract!

Townsend is a wonderful loanee, I know he will do well!

You've come so far! Well done mate and good luck in the Championship.