TheGregBlade
Member
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2019
- Messages
- 585
- Reaction score
- 1,358
After all the chaos of yesterday, I have been thinking about losing Slav and I am less concerned than I was yesterday. Not convinced by the new direction but time will tell with that, although I am happier with making a change than just sitting by and hoping it will get better, I think we learned that lesson by keeping Wilder too long (would have wanted him to stay and rebuild or go quickly and we did neither).
That aside, I don't think Slav was all he was cracked up to be. I know there was the serial winner comment, and the "give him time and it will turn" comments but I didn't see much of that. Tuesday's game was the result that could have kicked us on, but it wasn't really a good performance and wasn't a striker playing themself into confidence either. It was a 'get a goal and defend the lead' kind of game, which is a positive result but not at all a sign of Slav's plan taking hold in the squad just earning a victory by any means necessary.
We are nearly in December and Slav doesn't even know his first-choice GK, or his first-choice striker, or what formation he wants us to play. He played Brewster on the wing, he dropped Bash who is the player you want to play as he's nearly always an 7/8. Some players seemed undroppable despite playing poorly for several games in a row. Brewster scores then gets dropped. N'Diaye gets sent to the U23s. Some of his subs have been very strange, bringing on a defender when we have needed a goal. More importantly, the club has no connection with the fans and the Lane has been like a library. The players are not exciting the fans and the fans are not excited enough to get behind the players. Just very grey and strange all round.
None of this is in any way giving a positive story for Slav.
I get that there is the "he wasn't backed in the summer" chat. This is partly true but isn't the full picture. We needed a GK, LCB, and creative midfielder in the summer, those had to happen. We would have liked wingers but you can't always get everything you want, especially when the owner doesn't have the funds to bankroll us. If we had 2 wingers though, would we be in a better position than we are now? I'm not convinced, all it takes is a couple of injuries and suspensions and then your two wingers are down to 1 or 0 which unbalances the team. Then you are back to square 1 and we have found Slav to not really be capable of much creative problem-solving. Plus you need to sign good wingers, just having poor wingers isn't going to improve the team.
There is also the "we need to spend more money" chat, and from experience, it is hard to agree with this tbh. We have tried to throw money at buying players in McB, Brewster, Berge, Freeman, etc and none of that has worked (yet), luckily several of those signing are young enough to turn it around. Our best players tend not to come on big-money deals. When you look back at our signings over £3m, I can't see many success stories besides Beattie, Hulse, Egan and Ramsdale due to the sell-on.
I get there is also the "but we aren't getting our first choice" chat too, but let's be realistic, who is choosing Sheffield on £50k when you can choose Villa at £100k, or an established prem club like Brighton. Our competition for players is the championship, if we are losing our 1st choice there then we have an issue, we can't compete at Prem level, we just have to suck that one up and accept it, no point crying about something that isn't possible.
It's disappointing to have spent all our transfer budget on getting rid of Slav, but from what I have read around it looks like he wanted to take an axe to the squad in Jan. From what I have seen so far, I don't think he was the man I would want to wield the axe. For better or worse, I actually trust Hecky will be better at renovating the squad than Slav. He understands the club more and is far less of a mercenary than Slav. It appears that Slav lost the trust of the board with his decisions and you're not going to give someone free reign when they have lost your trust. Plus, for a manager to be able to make the right signings he needs to be able to understand how to use what he's got first and again, not convincing.
All-in-all I am actually pretty (sadistically) interested in the next few months/years at the club. I like the idea of bringing the youngsters through, could turn out pretty good, could equally go pretty poorly too, either way, it will be an improvement on what we have had the last few months with Slav.
That aside, I don't think Slav was all he was cracked up to be. I know there was the serial winner comment, and the "give him time and it will turn" comments but I didn't see much of that. Tuesday's game was the result that could have kicked us on, but it wasn't really a good performance and wasn't a striker playing themself into confidence either. It was a 'get a goal and defend the lead' kind of game, which is a positive result but not at all a sign of Slav's plan taking hold in the squad just earning a victory by any means necessary.
We are nearly in December and Slav doesn't even know his first-choice GK, or his first-choice striker, or what formation he wants us to play. He played Brewster on the wing, he dropped Bash who is the player you want to play as he's nearly always an 7/8. Some players seemed undroppable despite playing poorly for several games in a row. Brewster scores then gets dropped. N'Diaye gets sent to the U23s. Some of his subs have been very strange, bringing on a defender when we have needed a goal. More importantly, the club has no connection with the fans and the Lane has been like a library. The players are not exciting the fans and the fans are not excited enough to get behind the players. Just very grey and strange all round.
None of this is in any way giving a positive story for Slav.
I get that there is the "he wasn't backed in the summer" chat. This is partly true but isn't the full picture. We needed a GK, LCB, and creative midfielder in the summer, those had to happen. We would have liked wingers but you can't always get everything you want, especially when the owner doesn't have the funds to bankroll us. If we had 2 wingers though, would we be in a better position than we are now? I'm not convinced, all it takes is a couple of injuries and suspensions and then your two wingers are down to 1 or 0 which unbalances the team. Then you are back to square 1 and we have found Slav to not really be capable of much creative problem-solving. Plus you need to sign good wingers, just having poor wingers isn't going to improve the team.
There is also the "we need to spend more money" chat, and from experience, it is hard to agree with this tbh. We have tried to throw money at buying players in McB, Brewster, Berge, Freeman, etc and none of that has worked (yet), luckily several of those signing are young enough to turn it around. Our best players tend not to come on big-money deals. When you look back at our signings over £3m, I can't see many success stories besides Beattie, Hulse, Egan and Ramsdale due to the sell-on.
I get there is also the "but we aren't getting our first choice" chat too, but let's be realistic, who is choosing Sheffield on £50k when you can choose Villa at £100k, or an established prem club like Brighton. Our competition for players is the championship, if we are losing our 1st choice there then we have an issue, we can't compete at Prem level, we just have to suck that one up and accept it, no point crying about something that isn't possible.
It's disappointing to have spent all our transfer budget on getting rid of Slav, but from what I have read around it looks like he wanted to take an axe to the squad in Jan. From what I have seen so far, I don't think he was the man I would want to wield the axe. For better or worse, I actually trust Hecky will be better at renovating the squad than Slav. He understands the club more and is far less of a mercenary than Slav. It appears that Slav lost the trust of the board with his decisions and you're not going to give someone free reign when they have lost your trust. Plus, for a manager to be able to make the right signings he needs to be able to understand how to use what he's got first and again, not convincing.
All-in-all I am actually pretty (sadistically) interested in the next few months/years at the club. I like the idea of bringing the youngsters through, could turn out pretty good, could equally go pretty poorly too, either way, it will be an improvement on what we have had the last few months with Slav.
