Brabin guided Cambridge to the Blue Square Premier play-off final

Cambridge United chairman George Rolls has confirmed that the club have given manager Gary Brabin permission to enter talks with a Football League club.

The U's lost 2-0 to Torquay in Sunday's Blue Square Premier play-off final.

Rolls told BBC Radio Cambridgeshire: "We've had an approach from a club much higher than us. I felt it was right to give him permission to speak to them."

Brabin, a former Blackpool midfielder, has been linked with the vacant manager's post at Bloomfield Road.

Brabin has enjoyed a hugely impressive first season at the Abbey following his arrival from Southport last summer.

"Hopefully Gary will show some loyalty to us. We gave him a job when he'd only been in football for five or six games," he said.

"We gave him a huge budget last year, more money than Jimmy Quinn the year before. I just hope he stays around and tries to build again for next year."

Brabin spent big on his way to guiding the U's to the play-off final for the second successive season.

Scott Rendell, Lee Phillips, Andy Parkinson and Phil Bolland are just some of the big names players to have arrived at the club over the past year.

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But Rolls said money will be tighter should Brabin stay on for next season.

"We've got to run the club as a business and become solvent, we can't have people putting their hands in their pockets every five minutes to bail us out.

"We've got to act as a business and act sensibly. There will be cuts, but we can still push for the play-offs again."

Rolls could not confirm whether or not Brabin would take assistant player-manager Paul Carden with him should he decide to move on, but expects the situation to be resolved within the next few days.

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