Taki Nicolaidis made an impressive start to his coaching career with Inglewood United.   In the space of nine months he has taken the Club from also-rans to second in the National Premier Leagues plus a Grand Final appearance, all of which was recently recognised with the competition’s Coach of the Year award.

In the second part of a question and answer session Nicolaidis turns his focus towards 2017, revealing why he’s content with the existing playing roster, his desire to give youth a chance, the coaching set-up and when Inglewood will end their trophy drought.

What are you hoping to achieve next season?

My goal is to always keep improving on whatever we achieved the previous season.   In our case that means we are looking to keep putting ourselves into a position where we can win a trophy.

Is there much need for change to the playing squad?

Considering we weren’t too far off last season, I don’t feel there is much we need to change.   From a playing group point of view I am looking to possibly bring in a couple of players to help improve our squad and a focus on strength and conditioning in order to keep everyone healthy.

All the existing players have recommitted for next season which reinforces our stability and the hunger within the group.   We all want to improve as a team and if the ‘right player’ was available and keen to join us then I would definitely look at him, especially if I feel he would help us improve.

Promotion from within the club is important…

I always want to provide a pathway for talented youngsters and we have a few good youngsters currently within our club.   This year’s Rising Star in Alex Ishida-Livings along with Ryan Sardi, Connor Becsi and Nic Challot will all commence pre-season with the First Team.

Alex, Ryan, Connor and Nic will get the opportunity to learn from our senior players by training alongside them getting match time.   Those same opportunities will be given to any other youngster in the 18s and 20s that impresses and indicates he is ready to step up during pre-season.

Robust and stable support structures are vital for player and Club development…

I strongly believe in stability and we have reappointed Richie Abrams (18s) and Andrija Petrovic (20s) who have a very good coaching record in their respective age groups and will continue to identify and develop youngsters.   We have also re-appointed Dave Whalley as our senior goalkeeping coach along with Saul Contera and Andy Keogh as First Team assistants.

It’s no secret the Club are eager to end their trophy drought…

Last year we rebuilt with fourteen new players coming to the club and performed very well, finishing just short of winning the league and Grand Final.   All our players have agreed to stay on as they still have that fire in the belly and feel as a group that we have unfinished business.

The fact that the entire player group are staying definitely helps with our stability and with the possible introduction of a player or two that will add value and improve our squad.   As long as our squad stays healthy then we should be right up in the mix for trophies again in 2017.