Lee Boylan is the 11th player to leave the Abbey this summer (Getty)

Departing Cambridge United striker Lee Boylan believes manager Jimmy Quinn's squad have been unsettled by the current spate of departures.

Eight of the 11 players who started last month's Conference Premier play-off final have now left the club.

Boylan joined Stevenage over the weekend for an undisclosed fee after being placed on the transfer list.

"It just felt like a bit of a place where you did not know what was going on there," he said.

Boylan, 29, scored 11 goals in 32 league appearances for Cambridge after signing on a free transfer from Grays Athletic last summer.

He was placed on the transfer list following the club's 1-0 defeat to Exeter in the Conference Premier play-off final.

Following interest from Stevenage Borough, who had an initial bid for the striker rejected last week, the club accepted an improved offer over the weekend at the player's request.

Boylan revealed that, despite placing him on the transfer list, the club made late efforts to persuade him to stay. But, by this point, he was keen to leave.

"I've got a manager at Stevenage in Graham Westley who was phoning me five or six times and day and really wanted me," he said.

"As soon as Jimmy said to me that I wasn't in his plans for next year my heart just wasn't at the club any more," Boylan told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire.

It just felt like a bit of a place where you did not know what was going on there Lee Boylan

"After being told by Jimmy 'thanks for what you've done for us this season, but you don't feature in my plans for next year', that's what made my mind up."

Boylan's departure means that 11 players have left the club since the end of the season, with no new arrivals as yet. And while Boylan has said this was not a factor in his desire to move, he believes other players will be concerned.

"I head Mark Albrighton had gone, then I heard Rob Wolleaston, and obviously before that Courtney Pitt had been released," he said.

"Obviously I've now secured my move to Stevenage, but I don't know if Cambridge have brought any other players in. I just don't know what other players are going to think."