Whilst some claim Chelsea's dominance has reduced the Premiership's competitive edge, few could say the same of the Coca Cola Championship. Since being promoted to the Championship last season, Hull City have been hit by injury including the loss of three key players for the entire season. Hull City and England U21 Manager Peter Taylor shared his thoughts with Sue McCann.

"The standard of the Championship is very high, we're finding that. It's an amazing jump for us because I think that the Championship has probably got stronger and we're a new team in it. It's lovely to be in it and it's a very exciting league to be in but it's also very, very tough in every way. Even though Sheffield United would be classed as rivals in the area (to Hull), it's nice to see them up there. Probably most Managers would have said the three teams coming down would have been the teams up there and of course that's where it is a very open league this year. I think that anybody can beat anybody, there are a lot of draws because the standard is so close."

Has the introduction of the Transfer window to the Championship made any difference to the increased competitiveness this season?

" I'm actually one who's not for the transfer window for any league let alone the Championship, because you've got certain clubs who all of a sudden get injuries and it hurts you too much. We can't afford then to have too many players on our staff to overcome the injury crisis. I suppose the bigger clubs in the Championship, because of that I'm sure have stocked up even more so they have enough bodies to come in if their important players get injured. I look at Sheffield United and Leeds and I think they've strengthened very, very well and that's why they are going to be very competitive."

You were promoted alongside Mike Newell at Luton and he's doing extremely well. Having managed in the Premiership do you think he could be the first player that actually won the Premiership with Blackburn to go on and become a Premiership Manager?

"Looking at Luton I think Mike Newell has done a brilliant job there, but he's got a very, very settled team, not only on the confidence and form of the players, but he's not had the injuries so it's allowed him to carry on improving on what he did last year. When you go into any league if you have confidence from a promotional year you are going to be hard opponents. I look at Mike and I think he seems to fit players into right areas and I 've got no doubt he will do that anywhere he goes, so it won't surprise me if he will be in the Premiership."

Wales, Northern Ireland & Scotland all appear to have concerns about where their next generation of young players will come from. In your role as England U21 Manager do you share similar concerns for the future of English football.

" I think the way that the English Academies are working is first class, I've got no doubt about that. My own experience from the last England U21 game that we played shows this. I had quite a few different types of call offs in different positions, and all of a sudden we brought in Thomas of Charlton and Lennon of Tottenham. I think that if you look at England U19's and U20's they've also got players that could be called up if we lost anymore. So I've got to say that the Academy side of it with Howard Wilkinson, for me as long as that stays as serious as it was when Howard introduced it, I've got no doubt at all that we are going to be producing a lot of players. "

During the years you've been involved with the England U21's you've had players like Joe Cole, Frank Lampard, John Terry all come through. How proud do you feel to actually see them now in this outstanding Chelsea side, not just holding their own amongst some of the World’s best players, but actually being one of the best players in the team.

" It's lovely, because you when you take a young player you never know how they are going to handle the situation of being a good player, being a famous player. Frank Lampard for instance, I thought he was a very good player at U21 level then all of a sudden he leaves West Ham and he seems to have gone up another gear. Not only in his football, his fitness and everything else he's taken on board to be a first class professional. It's not only Frank, I look at a lot of the players now in the seniors that I had the pleasure of working with them in the U21's. It's also nice that you get a text every now and again from them and little things like that, it shows that they haven't forgotten that maybe certain people might have helped them and so on. It makes you very proud that if you think that if you put 1% into their careers, you really enjoy seeing that."