Criticisms of Jokanovic

The only mistake by the Pozzos I can see is their stating out loud the intention of winning promotion. Take that factor out the equation then just how bad has it been on the pitch? Better than any since 06 for sure.

 

What we do need to take into account is that apparently Jokanovic does not have the final say on which players come in and which are shown the door. That being the case even if he has a squad of 50 players, if they are not up to the physical attributes, which some are suggesting - you can't make a silk purse out of a sows ear! He has to find a way to protect our more 'fragile' players and at the same time give them the space to play.

I don't care if we lose games, when we've given our all and come up short, when it does grate though is when you get the view that some are not really going the extra mile. Guideora could be the answer in part - I hope we can extend his stay!

 

Never forget Boxing Day.

 

Showed a lot of fight at Reading but let's forget that

 

:whoosh:

 

Yes. Showing a bit of fight one game in ten and never building on it. Not really promotion material is it?

 

I see posts at times saying that the premier league will be boring etc, sit back and enjoy the ride there at least.... Is it just me or is "the ride" pretty ****ing frustrating?

 

I've never seen his face on the pitch.

 

exactly

 

For the first half at Reading was a snooze fest where Bassong, Angella and Cathcart passed along the line to each other.

So the fight was only for one half of ten matches!

I cannot really forget SJ twice stating Ikechi Anya as a centre midfielder, having to move him over to the wing both times as it just didn't work. One of those times he paired him with the latter day ex Forest Roy Keane that was/is Lewis McGugan.

The effect of these bizarre set ups is to have given heart and momentum to our opponents in the promotion race, who have all gone on positive runs after getting unexpected bonus points against us eg Ipswich, Middlesborough, er Birmingham, Bournemouth, Derby, and now bloody Wolverhampton. There may be more but I'm now leaving for Cardiff.

 

Make sure you leave yourself six hours to get there.

 

Fought hard against Cardiff but their keeper had one of those days, fought hard at Ipswich, fought ourselves back in the game against Derby but gone done by two wonder strikes. Fought hard at Charlton and should have won easily.

 

The issue here is clearly our different interpretations of the word 'fought'

 

Sorry Mrs Howe.

 

It is , because i was at Ipswich and Charlton , and we deserved nothing at Ipswich , and at Charlton , yes , we dominated along our back line , but still ended up hoofing it to Bikey for 75 minutes and he ate it up

 

Pozzo appointed Jokanovic to take over the helm when we were in the top 3, and on an unbeaten run.

So far, under his stewardship we've taken 17 points from 36. That's less than 50%.

Purely based on that statistic, it hasn't looked like a very shrewd appointment so far.

I do stress 'so far' of course.

 

I usually defend the team but Boxing Day gives me little ammunition. We'll be lucky to finish 12th at this rate, the last 10-15 matches have generally been poor with the occasional highlight. Not promotion material, whatever the problem is.

 

Is that Vydra in the background? #bottlers

 

Yes, despite spending pretty much the whole season in the top 6 we'll be lucky to finish 12th. We are a typical playoff chasing team, capable of beating most teams in the league with some **** results thrown in along the way. I don't get the massive cloud of pessimism hanging over this forum.

 

Oh god, era comparisons. How I loathe them.

This lot are, amongst other failings, disorganised, casual and lacking team chemistry. But they'd beat all of Taylor's teams. They'd take apart the Brazil 1970 team. Anya would be the best player in the world in 1980. Luther Blissett, Nigel Callaghan or any of those others from the golden age would be completely inept against our current defence. They'd all be crippled after 45 minutes of football in 2014.

 

Surely our main problem is one of inconsistency?

It's easy to feel depressed after Boxing Day's rubbish, but two weeks ago we gave a really excellent performance to the watching world at Fulham. Never mind people saying 'oh but Fulham were rubbish etc'. No. We were excellent.

We also gave a battling performance to beat Reading last week. In other words, we seemed to have turned the corner again after the 4 match losing run. Joka was even in line for Manager of Month.

And then Wolves

Yet the side that night played the midfield most of us consider our best trio. Abdi was in great form going into that match. So was Troy. We played the so called 'dream front two' (16 goals between them). Our defence included Cathcart who has been impressive this season. We weren't ravaged by injuries and had only one player suspended. And yet we were terrible.

Unfortunately decisions taken by the Pozzos off the field this season have been inconsistent..and that's how our on field activities can also be described. While the likes of Bournemouth and Ipswich put together consistent runs that take them clear at the top, we lurch from thrashing a team 5-0 one week to being utterly useless at home the next.

That's the frustrating thing..we know we're better than this. In a perverse way, I'd almost rather lose 10 in a row (I did say ALMOST!) to bring everything to a head so things get properly sorted, rather than this frustrating one step forward, one step backwards run.

 

Mike Phelan might not have been a bad choice as the British coach we all want, but now he's gone to Norwich who seem to have improved a bit since he got there. I suppose his lack of experience in Serie B or the Spanish Third Division must have counted against him.

 

Nobody can say, but the fittest team in the league in 1980 against the least fit in 2014 would be a pretty even match. And then you take the commitment and team spirit of 1980, the fact that we had defenders who could defend and midfielders who could win the ball, as well as an unbelievable pair of wingers and decent strikers and I reckon the GT team would have a chance.

Oh god I'm beginning to sound like my father-in-law, who reckons football (and everything else) has been going downhill since the 1950s.

 

I agree with this. Many posters on this forum will have you believe our squad is not as good as we think or that our quality is a myth. That is total rubbish, IMO. We do have one of the, if not the, best squad in the Championship. We have Premier League teams bidding £12m for a striker, Celtic and Villa want our wing back, Keith Andrews said it's the best squad he's ever been a part of in his entire career, Steve Clarke said Watford's squad is one of the strongest in the division and Mackay said something similar. I'm sure if I did some proper research I could find many more examples of quotes from people from within the game that rate the Watford squad very highly.

There is no question that the quality we have to choose from should win this league at a canter, had it been properly managed. Look at Bournemouth. Do people really think their squad is superior to ours? Of course it's not, but they are properly coached and managed.

Our players can do it, look at how formidable we were at home under Sannino. Look at how strong we were during that fantastic run under Zola. The ability is there to brush most teams aside, especially at home.

To have lost 3 of the last 4 home games is absolutely criminal. I consider the wins we had against Wigan and Millwall as fortunate too, as they both deserved something from the game. Reading should have comfortably beaten us too, but we just got lucky that their forward could not convert from 3 yards. Look at the highlights from that Reading game and you'll see they create chance after chance, yet that goes down as a battling win just because luck was on our side that day.

After the initial upturn in form you usually get with a new manager/coach you normally see a levelling out and the real form tends to reveal itself. 5 defeats, 2 fortunate wins and one fantastic performance is what we have got from the last 8 games. That's only one good performance in 8 matches.

The Watford job is a dream job for any coach worth his salt. If you cannot fashion a good team with the players you have available to you, then you're really not up to the job.

 

Prefer to win 10 in a row malty. I agree the potential for brilliant football is within the capability of this squad but the inconsistency is baffling. Hope we can win today (4 from 5 wins) and kick on but who knows.

 

Who have you got in mind Smudge?

 

The 'best squad in the division', but rotate a bit and we end up losing at Birmingham.

The 'best squad in the division', but not one we can be sure are all pulling in the same direction.

Lose one of Deeney or Vydra up top and the replacements are either the inconsistent flair of Forestieri or the improving but still not a true natural scorer in the shape of Ighalo.

Lose one of Abdi-Munari-Tozser in midfield and we're looking at a loanee who might soon be leaving us, or a one-time wonder boy who seems to have lost his way.

Strong in numbers at the back, but the likes of Ekstrand, Doyley etc don't fill everybody with confidence. Neither does our back-up keeper when Gomes cries off (though I think he's acquitted himself well when called upon this season).

A squad where allegedly Ranegie, McGugan and Andrews have all been shipped out for non-footballing reasons, while Dyer seems a pariah to many.

A squad where this season even our best players have been prone to inconsistency.

And a squad who've already had 4 Head Coaches this season, an Italian, a Spaniard, a Scot and now a Croat.

As Hornetboy says, the signs are we've not properly managed things this season. Big squads full of star performers are nothing if not pulling together. Small squads like Burnley last year, Bournemouth this and even us in 2005 can achieve so much if well managed and full of togetherness. In my opinion, we need a total overhaul.

That missed opportunity in the last match of the season two years ago gets bigger and more painful with each week that passes.

 

Yes...Malt. The best squad, but not being correctly managed. Had we been correctly coached then rotation would work. Had we been correctly motivated then we'd be all pulling together.

Individual players have regressed over the past year. Forestieri looked a fantastic proposition when he first came, he just needed the correct guidance. He really flourished under Zola. Now he and Vydra look a shadow of their former selves.

You may think we need an overhaul, and maybe we do, but I do not think we'll ever get better players than the quality we have now while we're in the Championship. Where we need an overhaul is in the coaching side of things.

You mention Burnley, well they are run by someone we sacked. Unfortunately good Championship managers do not grow on trees. There are not too many about. I think this is an area, the only area, where the Pozzo's have got it wrong. They seem to have a blind spot when it comes to coaching. I'm sure these guys are all competent and are properly qualified, but when it comes to the Championship you really need a bit of insider knowledge. Apart from Chamberlain we have no one that knew anything about the Championship before the club employed them. It's this learning on the job type experience which is costing us, and the Pozzo's appear to want promotion this season, but are handicapping themselves with people that have a lot to learn culturally as well as needing local knowledge of the league they are operating in.

This is only really going to produce frustrating performances and results. Inconsistency is inevitable. Once fans get frustrated with the coach then it really only goes one way....then we're all back to square one once more.

 

Yeah, that's the thing really isn't it..'who knows'! We were consistent under Zola during that great 3 month midseason run, and consistent at home under Beppe. (and consistently bad away!!). Other than that, we all turn up to a match never quite sure which Watford we will get!

 

You either missed or didn't get my previous post. What if, when they first took over, instead of talking about promotion the Pozzos said they are going to need the next three to five years consolidating the structure of the club while they get to know and learn the dynamics of the Championship? What then?

 

Agree HB1. And belated Happy Christmas to you and the family! Keep up the good posts!

I think we do need an overhaul. A coach who inspires. Zola certainly did. Yes, we ultimately failed in his first season but we still got closer than we have done since. A coach who gets everybody pulling in the same direction. We didn't read/hear many stories of player unrest during that season. Even players from the Dyche era who left us left with nice words about our set up (Iwelumo etc).

I think we need a coaching team put together by the Head Coach, not the owner nor the previous coaching team. Pozzo suggests Gibbs, Joka isn't sure, the opportunity was lost. Joka has nobody he knows or trusts on his team, he's just inherited.

I still believe the Head Coach should have the final say on player recruitment. Sounds fancy our system but does it work? Has it worked successful in this country? I say not really.

I still believe more work should be done too on player 'suitability'. Will they fit into the Championship? Will their character and personality fit our squad? Important details imo. It's not all about their wikipedia entry or exotic name or background.

As I've said before I believe the Pozzos to be great news for us financially but they've made a total pigs ear of the footballing side this season. Worryingly so far, appointing Jokanovic only appears to be the latest **** up.

 

I'm not sure they'd have been able to convince some of the players they wanted to sign to come here regardless of the fact most were already in the group. And would Zola have signed up to play at consolidation?

 

Erm 12/13?