Cambridge United head coach Mark Bonner staying with the Sky Bet League One club amid Rotherham United interest
It is the news all Cambridge United fans wanted to hear – Mark Bonner is staying put.
The U's head coach had been strongly linked with the managerial vacancy at Championship outfit Rotherham United in recent days and yesterday bookmakers made him the clear odds-on favourite to take the job.
However, the 36-year-old boyhood United supporter has this morning confirmed that he is to remain at the Abbey Stadium after a conversation with the Millers.
“Speculation is rife all the time in football. I’m here, I’m staying here and I’m not going anywhere – that’s the story,” he said
“There’s nothing for fans to worry about, if they were! My job hasn’t changed. I’m really enjoying my time here and I think we’re mid-way through a bit of a project and we’re not quite where we want to be yet.
“I’m well aware of the amount of work we’ve got to do. I’m not kidded on by our current position in the league table, but we’ve got a brilliant month ahead of us and that’s what we’re really focussed on.
“I’ve had discussions with clubs and I think the details of those conversations is for me.
“But I’m one of – I think – a number of people who have had a conversation and the outcome of the conversation is that I’m here. I’d rather talk about the job I’m doing than the fictional one that I’m not.
“That’s the situation for me, it’s crack on and get to work and look forward to a really loud atmosphere on Saturday in what I think will be a really tough game (home against Derby County).”
Speculation surrounding the future of some key figures within the club is something United have had to become accustomed to during Bonner's successful two-and-half-year tenure.
Yet while he understands it can be a cause for concern for supporters, he believes that it is something that should be embraced, pointing to the fact that interest from elsewhere highlights how well the job is being done by everyone connected with the club.
He added: “The reason we’ve been successful is because of everybody that has played a part in that – the staff I work with every day, the owners and the board are different class and they’ve got real ambition for what we’re doing and where we want to go. And the players have been brilliant, really good to work with.
“In that sense the club is in a really good position and we’re on an upward curve – we’ve had a good two years.
“We’ve said this before, it’s going to be very hard for us to maintain that momentum. We shouldn’t be kidded by the first 10 games, (but) it’s a brilliant platform to build on and really our targets for the season don’t shift. There’s a real united front here to continue building what we’re doing.
“The speculation, whether it’s myself, members of staff, players, I think (it) will always be there and we should be actually quite glad of it because it must mean we’ve got some good people and good players and things are going well.
“We’ve had some important members of staff leave the club in recent months in Matt Walker, Tom Pell and actually Mikey Burroughs (physio) has just started a job at Norwich City. We’ve got Ryan Meredith on board, he started this week.
“There’s lots of changes that are always going on. We’ve got lots of interest in the players and the staff we’ve got, I think that’s a positive, but the other thing is we’re in a good position to keep building and keep driving things forward.
“Myself, the owners, the board, the staff, the players are all really committed to continuing that so supporters should enjoy the position we are and not take it for granted at all, understand how difficult this season is going to be, but be excited by what the future might hold for us.”
