Criticisms of Jokanovic

Blame the fans that voted in the summer for the black shorts as the first choice ones.

 

Difficult conditions. Wrote off the game because we had a man sent off early. Referee cost us. Linesman cost us. Should've won. Could've won. Injuries cost us.

Always an excuse.

For the record, the conditions should have benefitted our style of play. A bit of heavy rain isn't particularly difficult either. There was little wind and I saw one player slip. In fact, the pitch was superb enough for Wolves to run us ragged for the first 20 odd minutes with decent passing play.

 

First well done to all our supporters that went to the game, and they did come across well on TV.

I think our problem is that the players are told to slow the pace down and just keep possession as long as possible. This leads us to either getting caught in possession or just giving the ball away. When we play quick (forward) passing we look a good team who could cut through anyone, but we do not seem to want to do this much in a game. To be able to pass forward you need players moving into forward positions to receive the ball and we do not do enough of this. Our current style of play is dull and frustrating, with the occasional piece of excitement.

 

Bring on the British assistant coach!!!

Is it just me or can any of you understand WTF Joka is talking about during his TV interviews?

If he is like that with the players no wonder they seem so flat and unmotivated, lets just hope it is his lack of better English, but judging by his demeanour on the touch line he is just a dull character with no charisma whatsoever; he certainly wouldn't motivate me :dismay:

 

And the more he coaches the team to more our play reflects his character.

 

First, well done Kenny Jacket. There is a lot of bs about what made us successful in the 70s and 80s. It was not all about the long ball attacks, what GOD insisted on was fitness and hard work. I saw that in Kenny's team tonight.

The failing of our current squad tonight was the same as the 'better' teams back then. We were not prepared or fit enough to match Wolves work rate. The player on the ball was given no time but the rest of the team didn't move enough to shake off the Wolves defenders to create space.

This was the perfect example of why we need someone on the coaching staff like Nigel Gibbs who knows how to play against teams like this. We also need the players to be prepared to work harder on and off the pitch. If we had matched Wolves intensity for even just the first 20 minutes we could have broken them.

My fear is that Sanino understood this but the players didn't like doing the hard graft.

 

Frank Smith has commented on Twitter that Joka is an awful lot more personable and engaging when there isn't a camera in front of him. Seems he's one of those who freezes in the spotlight possibly?

 

I don't mind losing. It's the one paced ineffectual style that I hate. 3 home games in a row now. Gomes to Cathcart to bassong to doyley to bassong back to Gomes who is forced to hit long. Dreadful and depressing.

 

It isnt just you. I've actually given up listening to his interviews now, I dont understand whats he saying and his tone of voice makes me loose intrest quickly.

 

Same here. I fast forward past his bit on HP interviews to get to the players. its just a boring monotone of unintelligible English.

I think what he is actually doing is listing every English word he knows in a random order - "we have to err potatoe....important... we errr.... do like this....errrrr... volkswagon....football......errrr...... Bruce Forsyth..... errr...... "

 

Not leaving a man at the halfway line when defending a corner so the cleared ball always comes back. :rant:

Though not doing this may be the received wisdom it seems.

 

Thinking about the Chelsea game.

 

A coach who can't speak English properly.

 

An average start for him so far, then. Some poor performances, an awful run, some great results and a lot of heart and desire shown against Reading. When he decided to rest Munari and Vydra, I questioned him. Our style of play has, at times, been up to the standard of the Zola season. On other days, it's been slow, tepid, and boring.

However, is it really necessary to insult the man based on his accent, tone of voice and grasp of the English language? He's learning to speak more fluently, he seems to be fully committed to the job (only seen his kids once in the last 2 and a half months). He's not a push over as others could be accused of being. He's got McGugan out of the squad and after Andrews spoke out of turn, he's taken the decision as Head Coach to remove him too. Have we missed them?

He may not sound like the most inspiring person for HT team talks but I'd take a coach who has good ideas over a coach who'll just scream their head off.

Our 2nd half record under Jokanovic:

Played: 12
Won: 6
Drawn: 3
Lost: 3

Beppe jumps about too much, Oscar strokes his beard too much, Jokanovic mumbles too much, Zola is too short. It doesn't really matter.

 

An inability to grasp the fact that the No1 requirement in this league is graft. Once you have outworked the opposition, you can then outplay them.

All the great teams work hard - Liverpool in the 80s, United under Fergie were the hardest-working sides out there.

I thought we had got it last week at Reading but it seems we have gone back to thinking 'we're the most talented squad ever seen at Watford, therefore we don't need to work'.

And while I'm ranting - this is nowhere near the most talented squad ever seen at Watford. Almost all of Taylor's teams would hammer them out of sight.

 

He's foreign.

 

Life's very simple in your world isn't it...

 

It upsets me that Sky commentators get excited when we win a corner. We've been on TV multiple times this year - should they not know by now?

 

Lack of fight, spirit and determination. Teams are closely matched and it's the extra 5% that wins matches. We (supposedly) have one of the most talented squads in the league but without the hard work we won't go anywhere.

 

With both Zola and Sannino their passion for the game was obvious and they at least gave the impression that they cared, even if their tactics were not always spot on.
Regretably Joka rightly or wrongly gives the impression that he isn't over bothered and shuffles around on the sideline muttering away for much of the game.

This is not a language thing either Sannino had poor English but it never prevented his passion for the game from coming out.

The real trouble is I fear that we are going nowhere at present, but really cannot afford another manager this season so we are stuck and that is very depressing as tactically we are too often clueless.

 

I think 12 matches is a good amount of games to see if the new manager has had a positive impact on the side.

So far his record stands at:-

Played 12
Won 5
Drew 2
Lost 5

Not sure why the original poster wanted to show his second half record, apart from making the record look better than it is.

Had he came in and won every match, he'd be rightly hailed as a fantastic coach, but I think it's also fair to show concern when things are quite clearly not going as well as they should be.

With the squad we have, we should not be losing so many games. We've lost 5 from the last 8, and 2 of the 3 we won in that run were fortunate victories (IMO). This is what concerns me the most.

 

I kind of get this except it wasn't an untypical performance sadly.

We couldn't have argued had Wigan beaten us for example. So what did we have our minds on then?

 

On the subject of hard work - just watched MoTD and Alan Shearer was waxing lyrical about the hard work of Chelsea's players. Maybe Joka could pick up another Matic or two from his homeland.

 

This might be hailed as a moderate start except that our performances have been mostly poor and the latest one the poorest. So that makes it a poor start imo esp when we consider that we have dropped away from a high league position.

And if you make a poor start and can't seem to communicate a plan or coherent way of playing and then it's a question of how long left?

 

Moaning. Our players do a lot of it. If something doesn't go for them Deeney and Vydra seem to have a big moan rather than chase and win the ball back.

 

Why also does Vydra think he should be taking corners or receiving short corners rather than be the Fox in the box?

 

There is the myth. We have some fantastically talented players but even they are incredibly naive. I agree Jokanovic could be doing better in some aspects but there is only so much he can do. Ipswich away for example, looking at the table now that would have been a fantastic point. What happened? Players switched off to a quick free kick 5 minutes from time. These are experienced players, players with international caps and players who have played in many leagues across Europe. The head coach cannot be held accountable for everything these players do because they really should know better, despite their talent.

 

I suspect Joka will pay the price for not being the most inspiring boss in the world.

BUT, at some point under all our bosses of the past three years we have seen the same failings from our players - lack of fight, lack of spirit, lack of general application, pouting when things go badly, not being strong enough mentally or physically.

While I'm not a huge fan of Joka, I don't think it's all down to him.

 

Well he might not have been your MotM, but the opposition fans were impressed:

"Our midfield duo completely bossed by Watford's no. 7 even with them down to 10"

 

Results don't tell the whole story. Our wins and draws have largely come from playing badly but "grinding out a result". Our losses have been pretty much what we deserved, apart from the Cardiff game. Really crap football, apart from a blinding game against an awful 10 man Fulham side that put a gloss on an otherwise shocking tenure as Watford manager. But is it his fault, or are the players just plain crap?

 

"With the squad we have"...yada yada yada...

We're simply not as good as people think we are. We have talented players who are capable of destroying any team that sits back and watches them (Sheffield Wednesday, Forest) but in the vast majority of games this season, have failed to play when the opposition get into them.

Daniel Tozser is, according to some on here, the best holding midfielder in the league. Why is our back three constantly exposed? Why do so many of his simple five-yard passes go wrong? Why, when he is man-marked, can he not adapt? And why does the whole team fail as a result?

Vydra yesterday, quite literally, gives the ball away the vast majority of the time that he received it. I understand he is frustrated by midfielders not spotting his runs but that is no excuse for the tempo that he played at yesterday.

The whole team crumbles when the opposition set up to stop us playing. It is frighteningly easy to beat us and neither I, nor the management it appears, know how to overcome it. Most of the team (including the much heralded Munari + Vydra) are actually incapable of playing the fast tempo, one-touch passing game we all want. They have qualities but how often does the pass go awry from them when Abdi, our only genuinely top top player, tries to get things going quicker.

This squad we have is a myth. We have some talented players who are incredibly easy to stop and, therefore, beat.

I'm pretty fickle so if we play brilliantly on Sunday, I'll probably come on here and sing all of their praises. But I just don't see it happening unless Cardiff play into our hands by not pressing from the front, which they won't. The majority of the teams in this league have got our number and, as a result, I don't see how we can go up.

This is not a Jokanovic problem, it's been the same for nearly two years now, and I don't really know what to do about it.

 

Speaking of Jokanovic criticisms...

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en-gb"><p>And people can finally see why I had communication problems with ****kanovic </p>&mdash; Keith Andrews (@keith_andrews8) <a href="https://twitter.com/keith_andrews8/status/548531457736859649">December 26, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

I agree that no Head Coach should be criticised for his manner, personality, accent etc.

My feeling over his appointment was 'well if the Pozzos are going to take a big gamble by bringing in a manager new to managing here, he's got be very good, to justify the gamble. If we're not going down the tried and trusted route of a British/Championship experienced Head Coach, if we're going to try something different, make it worth it.'

Has it worked so far?

 

Nigel Adkins is available. He might get more lucky here than he did at Reading.

 

Ability to head the ball or tackle