Unpopular opinion but I’ve always been a believer Slav would’ve got promotion in the same time Hecky did if he got backed properly and given time to implement his system. I like Hecky as a person but he’s out of his depth at this level
The elephant in the room which I've not seen anyone else really mention is
Not that the PL is a higher standard than the Championship, it's more a very different style of football, almost like a different game.
Slav tried to adapt a PL style of play, keep possession, control tempo etc, reminded me of Swansea, we actually looked good in the centre circle area but the attacks were too slow so we didnt create much. Our defence usually had very little to do but then would get caught out and we'd concede.
This style of dominating possession or at least being able to take some pressure off the defence by keeping some possession is really important on the PL.
When Hecky arrived he did a Kevin Blackwell, reverted to old fashioned honest much quicker percentage football.
Norwood would be encouraged to try the long pass, sometimes it would be a great ball but often he'd lose possession.
Losing possession was never an issue in the Championship because sooner rather than later you win it back.
Also the secret of Championship is all about consistency and being able to grind out/ battle for results.
Think you can sit back and defend in the Championship because strikers aren't as clever but in the PL inviting pressure is not a good tactic.
Another major point is in Heckys season we had one of the best attacking players in the league in Morgan Gibbs-White and in his 2nd year
again we had easily one of the best attacking players in the league in Illiman N'Diaye.
My view was Hecky style/ tactics are short termism where as Slav was more about trying to play proper football, better for the long term.
However 2 year ago, it was more about short termism, when you're on parachute payments you need promotion, so taking Hecky over Slav made sense.