With so much happening since the end of last season, we've kicked off this season's Q&A interviews by putting Jimmy Quinn 'on the spot' with a selection of your questions.

Dan Goddard, a U's fan for 30 years, was first on the button with these questions:
At any point last season did you consider walking away from the hot seat as manager due to that really poor run of form we had at the start?

JQ: No. I'm not one to walk away and I knew it was going to be difficult. You hope as a manager when you take over that you're going to make an immediate impact, but I did know after five or six weeks that we just needed better players in key positions. When you've been in football for a while you know where your weakness and strengths are and we had a lot of weak areas, but it was a case of biding my time and waiting to get the right players in.

Dan's second question:
What do you think our chances are of promotion next year?

JQ: I wouldn't go talking about promotion, because football is a funny game and it tends to bite you in the backside if you go shouting about promotion and everything else. Last season was a very, very difficult season and for the last seven years the club has finished lower each time, so the challenge for me is to try and turn that around and make it better.

I feel that we've got some really decent players in, and budget-wise - because unfortunately football is all about money - we're about halfway in our league. We're not one of the big hitters - the likes of Torquay and Stevenage and Aldershot are the ones spending the big money on players so they'll probably have a bit more quality in certain areas. But what I'm trying to do is ensure we have the right team spirit and I want these lads to have the mentality that we can go out and beat almost anyone.

The first target is to get to 50 points to make sure we stay in the league again as quickly as possible, and then we'll take it from there. You can't really go shouting to the rooftops but I'll be disappointed if we don't have a far better season than last year. Even when I took over Shrewsbury three years ago and we had a decent budget there, the last thing I wanted to do was shout about promotion because it's not the right thing to do.

What we have to do collectively - and that means the players and the fans together - is have a belief, try to make the Abbey invincible so when teams come here they know they're not going to go away with too much, and try and pick up results on the road.

I've planned the whole season out and we're going to get ourselves targets. We'll take it in ten game cycles and decide how many points we think we can accumulate. Most managers look at gaining two points a game over the course of the season and that's near enough to get you into the play-offs and promotion form, so we want to try and win as many games as we can but I don't really like talking about whether we're going to get promoted or not.

And Dan's final question:
To have a good run in the F.A Cup this year, I would like to see a bit of humour and toughness like a few years ago in the dressing room where before the players went on the field they had an ice cold bucket of water thrown over them to get them going! It worked as we reached two successive quarter-finals. Would you consider doing it this year?

JQ: We've got to be aware of the environment on that one, and not go wasting water with all this global warming! But there are different ways to approach games and that's a good question.

The answer is that I remember when I was at Swindon Town years ago we always did something different in the run up to cup games. We used to go to the army camps for a few days and get all the lads together and get the team bonding going. It seemed to make the cup games a little bit different from league games and there was a little bit more excitement created through that.

We've forged relationships with Bassingbourn Barracks just down the road and that's what I want to try to do this season. I think it's important from the club's point of view that we try and have a good run in the cups this year because it's valuable extra revenue that we need, and obviously from the fans' point of view they want to see the club progress in the cups. I certainly do as well, so yes we will be doing something different.

On the psychology, I've got a couple of friends who are into the psychology of the game and I'm thinking of getting them in, because I got a friend of mine in last season and the lads were breaking blocks of wood in the dressing room and without a doubt it broke through that barrier of nervousness so they were able to go out there and relax and push on, and that's when we started getting decent results.

So that's a good question and I'll certainly be trying to do something different so we can try to have a good cup run this year.

Alex Hooley asks:
What system are you thinking of starting the new season with? We seemed to be playing our best football with the 3-5-2 formation towards the end of last season.

JQ: Yes, I think the players have got used to that system but tactically we have to be aware that we may need to change it to 4-4-2. The interesting thing to me after the Plymouth game here the other week was that Ian Holloway said they hadn't come up against that system in the Championship, and it was a good system we played and he and his players found it very difficult to play against.

Obviously you have to make sure that the new players know how to play within that system, but it's nice that a Championship manager tells you that he found it difficult, particularly in the midfield areas where - if your three centre backs are positioned right - you've got a spare man.

Alex adds:
However, sometimes I felt that Courtney Pitt seemed unsure of his defensive role on the left hand side, leaving us more exposed. Have you worked with Courtney throughout the summer regarding this or will you just revert back to 4-4-2?

JQ: I thought Courtney was one of our best performers. Being a wide player he can be erratic and what he needs to take on board - and he has taken on board - is the importance of keeping possession. When I first came here we were playing a 4-4-2 and Courtney, who has this reputation for having pace to get behind defences, was giving the ball away.

It doesn't matter whether you are playing a 3-5-2 or 4-4-2 or 4-5-1, you need to retain possession of the ball and I've tried to get Courtney concentrating on keeping possession. I think his idea was to get the ball and take people on every time, but unfortunately through doing that he was giving the ball away too much and then you end up chasing the game a little bit. So we've got him trying to keep possession and sometimes coming back and switch the play - you can't always go forward.

But Courtney is a typical winger who gets frustrated if they haven't had the ball for a while and when they do get it they want to go forward and sometimes give it away, but I thought he was undoubtedly one of our better players at the end of the season and he certainly helped us get the results we needed.

We're working with all of the players, not just Courtney, to know exactly what their job is within the team framework

Dean Reynolds of Norwich asks:
Why have you re-signed Dan Chillingworth? Has he been re-signed because you couldn't get in who you wanted OR do you genuinely rate him as a player?

JQ: We were after a lot of strikers in the summer and Chilli scored five goals for us after coming back at the end of January and played some fantastic games for us. I've told him that he needs to be a bit more selfish and I wasn't sure if he's going to get us 20 goals, but I do know from working with him that he's a wholehearted player and he always gives his best.

I missed out on a lot of strikers who wanted to stay in the Football League or who went to play league football, and some strikers have stayed at some of the bigger clubs in our league. Everybody's looking for strikers at the moment, I'm looking for another striker, and whilst I'll get names thrown at me and I've looked at one or two people I know what I'm going to get from Dan.

I know he will work hard for the team and he did a terrific job for us at the end of last season and I thought he was worth another year. It's a good challenge for him and I don't think anyone can have any qualms with some of the performances he put in and some of the goals that he scored and the ones he set up for other people. He's a good acquisition for the squad.

This Q&A interview will continue in daily instalments for the rest of this week.

Andrea Thrussell

Is there a player or member of the backroom staff you'd like to put on the spot? Nominate them now by writing to web@cambridge-united.co.uk

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