Former Cambridge United defender Josh Coulson confident Neil Harris’ side can push for League Two play-offs

Josh Coulson is confident that a positive 2025/26 campaign lies ahead of Cambridge United.

After four straight seasons in the third tier of English football, the U’s were relegated down to League Two last term.

However, despite that obvious disappointment, Coulson believes that there is still plenty of room for optimism at the Cledara Abbey Stadium.

Cambridge-born Coulson, who made more than 300 senior appearances during his decade with United, said: “The club, as a business, is in such a good place. I understand football and if you ask yourself are Cambridge United in the right place to be a League One club right now, I’m not sure, and I actually think they did really well to stay there for four years because there’s a lot of big clubs with massive budgets in there.

“But when I look at how it is being run as a business, the work that the club does in the community and now they’ve got Neil Harris (head coach) and Mark Bonner (director of football) back, there’s reasons to be positive.

“They’ve got the sort of stability you don’t usually have when a team goes down. Normally it would be all doom and gloom, managers getting sacked and all of the players looking to move on, but that’s not the case.

“Of course relegation is always disappointing, but I think the fans and everyone connected with the club can see they’re in a good place.”

And with all of that positivity, Coulson sees no reason why it cannot be a successful season.

Former Manchester City youngster Ben Knight remains the only addition of the summer so far, but Coulson is confident that the recruitment will be of the necessary standard to have the U’s competing towards the top end of the table.

“Neil will demand positive results and he’ll attract good players and along with Mark, I’m sure they’ll recruit plenty of good signings,” added Coulson, who was part of Cambridge’s promotion-winning squad from the National League in 2013/14.

“They’ve been able to keep a good core of players from last season and when I looked at the retained list, I wasn’t surprised with anyone that was leaving the club because ultimately the squad was not good enough to stay in League One.

“They’ve kept the right ones and now I’m sure they’re working hard to build a new group.

“I’m sure they’ll win a lot more games than they have done in the last two or three seasons and it will be a team that the fans can connect with.

“I’m excited to see what they can achieve because I think they should be looking to be in and around the play-off positions.”

Coulson to play on at Newmarket Town – more on page 69.