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Hey fluff good question.

As I said in my speech, my biggest strength that I would bring to the U21 job is my familiarity with the team. I may be repeating myself a bit here, but we all know that whatever Eminence did worked well these past two seasons, so we should be in no rush for an instant change. I have worked very closely with Eminence, and understand how the current U21 structure works. Also, it would not be beneficial for the England U21 team to elect someone who still has to learn about all of our players, and since I am already familiar with many of the English players, I would be able to immediately weave my way into the system.

As for my biggest weakness I am not really sure, but I guess it could be said that I am inexperienced compared to some other managers (this was stated in the speech as well). I think I have shown I deserve some respect on the club team level, and have worked with NT's pretty much my whole career on BB. Although, there are still things that I will not know, but with the offsite forum discussing tactics and others problems that may occur is extremely simple. I do not make decisions on my own, and each decision will be discussed carefully with the rest of the staff.

Lastly, I will be able to put the time into this job ;) I think I have demonstrated I am willing to put that time in as well.

Last edited by SREZ at 5/15/2012 6:14:00 PM

I believe England has a great chance at doing well in the continentals this season. We are currently the number one ranked team in our pool, not that means much since teams can change drastically from season to season, but it still says something about how much England has improved over these last few seasons. I personally think we have a very high chance of coming in first or second of our pool, and making it to the second round. I can not promise any trips to the semifinals or finals, because obviously if we make it to the second round we will have to play countries that are just larger and more active then ours, but maybe some day far in the future we will be able to reach the level of teams like Spain, Italy and Poland. Until that day though, we will work with the players we have, and do our best to compete in this challenging region. One thing's for sure, other countries better keep a good eye on England as our players and managers keep improving ;)

Last edited by SREZ at 5/15/2012 8:06:38 PM

Well day one of the election (at least based on where I live) is pretty much over. Remember to cast your vote before voting ends. You have a voice so let it be heard! I answered all the previous questions, so shoot me up with any more questions or comments you may have. Thank you.

Thank you both for answering my questions.
A small point, but one i am glad to see both are able to commit to, is using google and working with a group of U21 staff. I think this coordination and effort across all managers needs to continue. I also think it is something that can be improved and shared with more managers (if any out there are interested in helping the u21 set up).
Something i have been weak at (due to time considerations) is recruiting/retaining any new managers that are interested in helping to track players as they grow. Perhaps the next coach could find an assistant who makes it their priority to do this and ease new managers in to tracking talent. The more we have tracking regularly the smaller burden it is on everyone else and in addition it opens the door to these managers learning more about everything else U21 related if they want, potentially developing future leaders/coaches etc.
Anyway good luck in the rest of the debate

I completely agree fluff. As a manager, I would never turn anyone eager to help out down if they wanted to help, because this very person could one day end up as our new U21/Nt coach ;) If the person was very new, obviously we would give them an easier job, and they would be able to ease their way up to a larger role if they performed well with their task. I know people can lose enthusiasm easily as well, so obviously they''d start out with a job easy to recover if they decided they no longer wanted to do it. Still I am all for the idea of more people wanting to help track players, and give their opinions in discussions on the offsite forum.

Just a quick question to both but probably aimed more at Srez, I think it is really important to interact on the forums - the work Eminence and Fluff have done has helped introduce more coaches to the forums and this has I think led to a greater number of players being trained which in turn has increased the competition for places on both the U21 an NT. With this in mind do you think that time zones will impact on your ability to communicate with coaches when they are at times of the day when they are most active?

Last edited by Lambaw at 5/16/2012 8:25:07 AM

Good and understandable question. To answer it simply I would say no. Usually when contacting managers there is never a situation so dire that it has to be attended to right away. A manager will most likely always be able to read our messages at any time (during a respectable length of time) and still fully understand what we were trying to communicate. If the situation were so important that we needed a manager to answer by a certain period of time, then we as a U21 staff would prepare ourselves and the manager and give them at least a few days (preferably a weeks) notice.

As for communicating with the staff, this has never and most likely will never be a problem. Usually our discussions on the offsite begin a week before a game actually takes place, giving everyone enough time to voice their opinion or approve of the tactical decisions. We have a nice system going, that has been working fairly well these past few seasons.

Last edited by SREZ at 5/16/2012 3:05:01 PM

I myself really enjoyed the match against the croatia, where we lost by 4 , i was impressed by the performance of Gregor Simpson , In what was a really enjoyable match he pulled down 21 rebounds and shot 7% including a 3 pointer. It was truly a herculean performance and we can look forward to alot more from him this season.