Baldock on Jokanovic

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Swannyblade said:
IIs that the same simple 5 at the back system that was lauded by the footballing world for its innovation and led us from the bottom of League 1 to 9th in the Premier League? It's no wonder everyone else has copied else has copied it and achieved similar results...real basic stuff
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Wilder's system took us from the bottom of League One to the bottom of the Premier League. You're conveniently forgetting the last 9 months of Wilderball when we'd been figured out (high, wide forwards to pin the wing backs in; pressure on Norwood, make the gap between defence and forwards too big for Fleck and Berge). The best tacticians evolve; to an extent Wilder did when we went from 3-4-1-2 to 3-5-2 but that was more of a tweak than anything else. He was found wanting when the bigger questions started to appear.

That first four years though... 😍 😍 😍 😍

themaninblack said:
Let’s not rewrite history. Jokanovic was useless, the football was dire and the only place he was taking us was Division 1. I very much doubt that he will be getting another job in English football. It was a disastrous appointment.
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We weren't in any danger of relegation under Jokanovic. We'd have finished between 10th and 16th.
 
LewishamBlade said:
Interesting take.

“I've not got a bad word to say about him. He was really good, really professional and he obviously knows his stuff. He's a very well-respected manager. But I've been at Sheffield United for five seasons and I know what the fans expect. They like their good football, but they also like fast, aggressive football with pressing and physicality and we just came away from that and we lost our identity a little bit. Who knows, if he had persisted it may have been successful in the end."

Yep. That last sentence is key to me. He’s got a track record of getting teams promoted when he’s backed and trusted, and gives you incredible football to watch while doing it.

Shame our players are a bit too dim to play anything but 5 at the back. Was a chance to change the whole culture of the club for the future. But nooooo… KICK IT FORRARD!! GERRITINT BOX!!! WHAT THA PASSING IT RARNDT DEFENCE FUAR!! HAVE A BASTUD SHOT WILL THA!!
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Think the seeds of Slav’s downfall were sown on deadline day when we failed to bring the two loan wingers in. Left him with a very inflexible squad and we were doing the whole square pegs round holes thing.

That’s a failing of the none footballing staff in terms of choosing to move late to save cash we gambled and lost.
 
Balham Blade said:
Wilder's system took us from the bottom of League One to the bottom of the Premier League. You're conveniently forgetting the last 9 months of Wilderball when we'd been figured out (high, wide forwards to pin the wing backs in; pressure on Norwood, make the gap between defence and forwards too big for Fleck and Berge). The best tacticians evolve; to an extent Wilder did when we went from 3-4-1-2 to 3-5-2 but that was more of a tweak than anything else. He was found wanting when the bigger questions started to appear.

That first four years though... 😍 😍 😍 😍
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I don't think the system failed because it was crude or simplistic though. I think it was let down by poor recruitment and a failure to implement further tweaks whenthey were required. We needed a replacement for JOC, a stronger more dynamic CM to compete/offer an alternative to Norwood, and a box-to-box type to replace Lundstram. We instead overpaid for youngsters who were expected to play at the highest level in a unique system they'd had no prior experience of.
There were lots of pretty triangles and patient build up play during the first four years, so the accusation that the fans always demand "KICK IT FORRARD!! GERRITINT BOX!!! WHAT THA PASSING IT RARNDT DEFENCE FUAR!! HAVE A BASTUD SHOT WILL THA!!" is a little unfair - that's only when we're not doing very well ;)

The truth is that the board thought they could drop Slav in and he would get the team promoted back to Prem without having to spend any funds on transfers. However Slav needed investment and time to implement his own style of play - United had neither and his appointment looks very naive in hindsight and probably cost us a run at the automatic places.
 
themaninblack said:
Let’s not rewrite history. Jokanovic was useless, the football was dire and the only place he was taking us was Division 1. I very much doubt that he will be getting another job in English football. It was a disastrous appointment.
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Absolutely. I love watching good football, but watching Slav's team was abysmal. As you say, I doubt he'll ever be employed again in England. Got Watford promoted in 2nd place, and Fulham up through the play offs, but so what? That's history. In between times he'd been fucking about in Israel and Qatar, so he was hardly in big demand was he? Nigel Adkins got Southampton from League 1 to the Premiership, and look what a useless twat he was for us. Anyone who thinks a track record of promotions to the Prem is the main criteria will presumably be demanding the return of Neil Warnock or Steve Bruce, both who have double the number of promotions that Slav has. Both would be dream appointments surely?
In short, Slav was fuckin' hopeless......
 
Echo the comments above about starting with the formation of last season and gradually changing stuff whilst keeping us in touch of the top 6, I think he'd have survived, and maybe got to build slowly into a team that could play his way.

The players all had big grins in thier faces when he left, and they can give him all the plaudits they want, but boldock and previously sharp have said the same thing, all very nice comments, respect, a good man etc but Sharp's grin almost turned into a laugh in one interview, they say what the media wants to hear, what they know they must say professionally within the game, but what they really think, well that's something completely different...

Note, that training day film when H-J & SMC took thier first session, every player running about and laughing thier heads off... Tells its own story doesn't it.
 
We didn't have the players for the formation. Simple as. You can't drill players to follow an exact system for years and then expect them to suddenly change and take risks
 
Swannyblade said:
I don't think the system failed because it was crude or simplistic though. I think it was let down by poor recruitment and a failure to implement further tweaks whenthey were required. We needed a replacement for JOC, a stronger more dynamic CM to compete/offer an alternative to Norwood, and a box-to-box type to replace Lundstram. We instead overpaid for youngsters who were expected to play at the highest level in a unique system they'd had no prior experience of.
There were lots of pretty triangles and patient build up play during the first four years, so the accusation that the fans always demand "KICK IT FORRARD!! GERRITINT BOX!!! WHAT THA PASSING IT RARNDT DEFENCE FUAR!! HAVE A BASTUD SHOT WILL THA!!" is a little unfair - that's only when we're not doing very well ;)

The truth is that the board thought they could drop Slav in and he would get the team promoted back to Prem without having to spend any funds on transfers. However Slav needed investment and time to implement his own style of play - United had neither and his appointment looks very naive in hindsight and probably cost us a run at the automatic places.
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I'm not suggesting that our failure in 20/21 was down to Wilderball being crude or simplistic. We just either failed to appreciate or wilfully ignored the fact that the over-performance the previous season wasn't sustainable. We also desperately needed Premier League level athleticism and physicality in that second season; we needed to ship Lundstram out when it became apparent that he wasn't going to sign a new deal and, as you correctly assert, we needed a competent LCB when it was clear that O'Connell was struggling with his knee.
 
I dont know if the board were expecting SJ to work with the players we already had with minimal out goings/incomings. If so that was at best Niave and at worst setting us and SJ to fail.

In hindsight (it's a wonderful thing) it would have been better to go for a manager who played 352. (Blessin?) And when that failed they were maybe forced into going for the guy the fans wanted the most. You can't argue against their ambition in bringing him in. But there was a big lack of planning and squad evaluation.
 
I don't think Slav needed significant backing, he just needed backing - which for some bizarre reason we couldn't/wouldn't/didn't do. The club needs to move in a different direction on the field, in my opinion at least, and we had the manager to implement that. It was bizarre to bring him in and not give him the tools to do it. If we do somehow go up with this squad and way of playing then it's gonna be more embarrassing than last season was.
 
robbiez666 said:
We didn't have the players for the formation. Simple as. You can't drill players to follow an exact system for years and then expect them to suddenly change and take risks
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Howard Kendall’s first game at Ipswich suggests otherwise.

Jokanovic and the board were both culpable for the way it worked out, but the main culprits are the players, some of whom did not buy in to what he was trying to do. Plus the number of unforced errors that cost us points was staggering.
 
LewishamBlade said:
Or a football fan who likes good football rather than trying to go with the same old tired, stalling methods?

You do know, you can have an opinion don’t you? Try it some time
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It’s clear from every post you make that you get next to no enjoyment following United. If that was me I’d stop wasting my time with it.
 

Yogi said:
Think the seeds of Slav’s downfall were sown on deadline day when we failed to bring the two loan wingers in. Left him with a very inflexible squad and we were doing the whole square pegs round holes thing.

That’s a failing of the none footballing staff in terms of choosing to move late to save cash we gambled and lost.
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It was a huge gamble, and yes it failed. But we needed a big overhaul regardless and never got it.
 
The guy was an absolute fraud. Cheque book Slav he was christened, and cheque book Slav he proved. I take no satisfaction in telling you all that I told you so. His Fulham and Watford teams contained two of the best sets of players ( if not the best) to ever play at this level. They played an ultra expansive style because they knew they'd score five to the opponents four. When he was in a league where he didn't have the best players you saw what happened.

A good manager gets the best out of the resources at his disposal, not the dream scenario of the squad they'll have in five years. His team had no identity in or out of possession, and he was tactically exposed week in week out. His fans got increasingly desperate with the excuses, making out that it was the tools and not the workman. The truth is that he had a footballing, possession based side with players that were capable of finishing top two. Its just a shame that the fraud was appointed and backed as long as he was. His parting message was that he needed 6-8 players 🤣
 
Never thought he was the correct fit for this team, it was bizarre but not surprising to see so many fans clamour for him. Proven to be such a poor decision by the board and owner. We were absolutely rubbish for the vast majority of games. Thought the players looked confused most of the time.

The current management is far from great yet we’re somehow limping into a top 6 finish despite the pathetic start to the season. Says it all really.
 
finlaytheblade said:
So you are comparing our squad with Liverpool & City ?.
Come on you can't be serious!!!
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It’s just an example of managers who wouldn’t change their principles for anything. Slav was the same.

He has won promotion from the division twice playing terrific football along the way with fast expansive football. If you haven’t got the players to play that and you aren’t backing him to change the squad then don’t appoint him at all???
 
We looked a relegation outfit; the players were laughing at his training methods, and he'd decided Basham was our weakest link. Some fans were saying he needed a complete set of new players of his choosing in order to play his way. Well, Hey Ho..... if a manager needs an open cheque book and wants to scrub the slate clean before he can begin to build a team then he's a dead duck as far as I'm concerned. With the injuries we've had plus very key shite ref decisions, and this squad so desperately in need of an overhaul it's a bleedin' miracle we are still in the mix with two games to go. That's down to Hecky and his team, and their understanding of what it takes to make a team.

Slav was a wasted appointment, and it was obvious from the start.
 
It was too much of a culture shock and an about turn from what we'd been doing the last 4 years under Wilder.

From the board's perspective, Wilder and the way his team played had been quite clearly shown up to not work anymore, the results were testament to that so the knee jerk was "this has gone so badly wrong that we need to do something drastically different to get some drastically better results". No O'Connell, different goalkeeper, Lundstram's lack of work ethic, Norwood being stifled, squad players who aren't Premier League standard and the gaps soon started appearing.

Turned out that drastically different wasn't in the mindset of the players who had, as has already been mentioned, been conditioned almost robot-like to play one way and one way only. It's still the case now but it needs to be an evolution if we were to do something different rather than tearing it all up and starting again like SJ tried to do- you can only do that if you do the same with the squad as Wilder did when he came in.

Differnce between Wilder and SJ's situation is that in League One, players are on shorter, cheaper contracts and it's easier to hire and fire than when you go higher up the leagues and big money is flying around as we've found to our cost with various expensive members of our squad who haven't been justifying their wages or transfer fees.

SJ may have overestimated the abilities of his players individually, because as individuals, most of them aren't talented footballers. They are by and large hard-working toilers who had a system in place that worked for them and reverting to anything different caused it to malfunction. If he'd managed to get enough of the players in that he wanted, he could have implemented his way of working a lot quicker and started to phase people out. Of course we'd signed a lot of rubbish on long contracts and he was stuck with what he had and the system that they knew. His hands were tied in terms of money and the players he had at his disposal and only then it was a case for him of "shit, now what?."

Time was money and we couldn't afford to piss around taking 6 months to embed a new system while we were flapping about near the bottom of the league, hence Heckingbottom's appointment to revert us back to type while Wilder's squad are still in situ.
 
LewishamBlade said:
It’s just an example of managers who wouldn’t change their principles for anything. Slav was the same.

He has won promotion from the division twice playing terrific football along the way with fast expansive football. If you haven’t got the players to play that and you aren’t backing him to change the squad then don’t appoint him at all???
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Agree with that prince made a big mistake and if we don't go up it will have cost us promotion.
 
I won’t comment on his abilities as a manager as he wasn’t here long enough to get the team playing to his style, but I will say it made my ears bleed listening to him and if his communication to the players was anything like that in his interviews it’s no wonder they couldn’t carry out his instructions. UTB
 

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