Ivic Out

When there were no mitigating factors with us, he wasn’t crap. And even after leaving, the players still spoke very highly of him in most quarters - those first few games, the unity between squad and coaching staff was the best it’s arguably been. It’s certainly never been as good since.

I agree it would be hard to swallow. But with the makeup of the squad that we have now, I think he’d be a far better bet at utilising our strengths than Ivic is.

 

Nope, never, if he was to ever return I'd stop supporting Watford.

 

In the cold light of day his Premier League record was a relegation and two sackings. I guess though if we did sack Ivic, then we’d have no choice to be looking at that sort of standard if manager, the recently sacked and unemployed. A bit like when we sacked Javi.

 

'Marco Silva, we want you to stay' sung the 1881 the week before he was sacked.

Can't have been that bad.

 

Had the Everton saga not happened, do you think he would have got us relegated?

I don’t.

Moreover, I think he likely would have been headhunted the following summer and we’d all likely look back with fondness at that season and rue that it ended after just a year in my opinion.

Sorry, digressing off the topic of the thread.

 

We’ll never know. All we have to go on was his performance at Everton, which ended up in him getting the sack.

We can also look at his spell at Hull, he did amazingly well to get them to the point where survival was possible, but completely capitulated at the end and lost to some beatable sides, a bit like Pearson really.

He is also fairly similar to Ivic in that if he doesn’t get the players he thinks he needs he sulks and tries to make a point.

 

Agree with the last point - but crucially, going back to my original statement...Silva seemed to take the players with him, have them onside and have them as a unit working for him (when he was commuted that is). I’m not sure the same can be said for Ivic right now...I really believe the players don’t like playing for him. And you can’t get promoted playing for a manager you don’t like or believe in.

We all wanted a manager that was finally going to get tough with our prima-donna players - but it’s not as simple as that. The players have to buy into it and want to work for him. The signs so far aren’t entirely good on that front.

We either needed to go with Ivic and give him a longer deal - or go with someone else who would have been instantly unifying and play to the strengths of the squad with immediate effect.

As it is, we seem to have chosen neither and I think it’ll end badly and let’s face it, expectedly.

 

Vlad admitting in his pre-match City interview that he might have made a mistake with the subs.

Perhaps he has already learned that any decision which involves putting our over-the-hill, massively overrated (by the press), "leader" Troy on the pitch is a mistaken one?

Here's hoping.

 

The players are probably as non-plussed and under-motivated by the interminably negative approach as most of us fans.

 

He learnt that incredibly quickly with Murray, so we can only hope so.

 

I like what Ivic says about what he wants.

Just not the way it actually looks on the pitch right now.

He needs at least until Christmas to see if he can get the team playing how he wants.

Would love all our coaches to get a whole season but this season is so big for us we'll need to be doing better for him to make it that far.

 

He'll need to be doing better in real terms to make it as far Christmas, unless we can miraculously continue to play badly 80% of the time and still luck enough wins to be in contention for automatics.

 

Really important game for him tonight. Lose this one to a playoff rival, playing poorly again, and he will be in trouble. We have looked poor for most of this season and are lucky to have the points we do.

 

It's quite possible in the Championship when you have Sarr and Sema.

 

I never watch this interviews and press conferences, so my view of Ivic is coloured by the performances and his dumb expressions on the touchline.

 

TBF 8-1-1 was resurrected for the 2nd half of Saturday's match.

 

On paper, yes, but in practice so far that effect has not been evident at least as much as it has, particularly in the case of Sarr.

 

Common denominator on the pitch? Obsession with playing a back 3.

I firmly believe if he bins this, goes 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 (or even old school 4-4-2!) then the players will enjoy it more and that will translate.

But he won’t abandon it. It’s like death by a thousand cuts until either Gino’s patience runs out or somehow he makes it to January playing like this and we acquire a LB/get Masina back.

Far and away the biggest concern for me is that the players look totally apathetic. Normally if a squad doesn’t enjoy playing for a manager, they can at least feed off the fans and play for them. We have neither IMO. I don’t think the players enjoy him as a leader/coach and that’s a really hard obstacle to overcome.

We’ve heard a few times from Ivic that they are letting him down - and a few times from Foster that the players are a bit abject in their efforts. Something isn’t right and I think we lack leaders to put it right.

 

It's the same old problem - the lack on interest and general malaise that pervades too much of the squad.

I like Ivic, I'm not completely sold on his formation, but he's clear on what is wrong within the squad and is clearly trying to change the mentality. He's been let down in the transfer market and more importantly, he's got an unbalanced squad, a chunk of whom are either mentally weak or simply don't care - backed up by Foster as you say

I don't think there's a manager going who can sort this shambles out. The only option is for Gino to put his hand in his pocket to give him a decent squad, but most importantly, to pay some of these layabouts to f*** off for good.

 

I think there are plenty of managers who would give a short term boost to the team, but it wouldn’t last, just like it didn’t with any of the others. I’m hoping Ivic is the reverse of all our previous managers and he eventually gets there medium to long term.

 

I think someone on Twitter said it best. He said that he'd never seen a squad refer to themselves as 'the best squad in the Championship' as much as we have before.

Brazen arrogance, a belief that we have to just have to show up to win games. It's what got us relegated and the ****s that remain haven't learned their lesson at all.

 

The problem isn’t the players. It’s the poisonous Pozzo culture.

It’s no surprise the players who seem to have the best attitudes are either new (Ngakia, Garner) or have been away from the first team picture (Cleverly, Sema).

 

Bang on. I hope Vlad grinds this pathetic attitude out of them but my fear is that Gino holds the same view, is the most arrogant of all and doesn't back him either with time or in the transfer market.

I'm sure Sunderland and Stoke has "amazing" squads when they were relegated from the premier league too.

 

I’ve said this repeatedly about the QPR game, they genuinely played like they didn’t believe QPR could score, with all that is associated with playing that way. A terrible attitude and completely wrong, the league is a poor standard but they’re still professional footballers and if you effectively invite them to score then more often than not they will.

 

I think there are managers who could sort this out. One springs to mind but it’s one the fans wouldn’t want - but maybe with little to no fans in stadiums for the foreseeable, it’d be more acceptable.

It’s a man Gino likely wouldn’t look at anyway but arguably a man we should have got last season instead of Pearson.

Sam Allardyce.

 

Funnily enough he crossed my mind. Mentioning Sunderland made me think of the job he did there and how they went down the pan after he left.

 

But this is what I’ve been getting at when I talked about the spirit under Silva in those early days - you can’t grind down a whole squads spirit to the point where they suddenly want to play for you.

Under Silva, players were running to the bench when they scored and/or the coaching staff went nuts when we put the ball in the net. This is the kind of spirit we need - where the coaching staff and squad are tight-knit and working for each other. We don’t have that.

I don’t believe that there isn’t a manager out there who could foster that environment. But the club has to create a place where that environment can happen - handing out one year deals to coaches and not getting them a balanced side in the transfer market were bad moves.

I always thought we needed a manager to come in and crack skulls together, to give him a longer deal and provide him the remit to show them who is boss - but I think what we really need is a manager who is almost one of them, puts an arm around them and tells them how good they are etc etc. And backs them all the way, privately and publicly.

 

100% agree. The spirit under Silva for the first 10 games or so was excellent. None of the players look happy at the moment and I don't think Ivic's outwardly cold and critical approach is helping.
Fully expect BC to look far more "up for it" tonight than us.

 

I'm not sure what that means!

 

The 'Sarr and Sema are too good for this league and will piss it as a result' effect, that you originally referred to, is what I'm talking about. A lot more reliable on paper than on the pitch this season.

 

To be honest the club only giving him a one year contract didn't exactly suggest they were brimming with confidence in him.

 

I’m just gonna phone my posts in now, like Ivic is with his game plans.

 

I f**king hate this bloke.