Vladimir Ivic - Sacked

I assume the players in Israel didn’t mind when they won back to back league titles.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise the type of manager Ivic was, because he’s the type of manager the owners deliberately sought out - a no nonsense coach with a winning mentality.

The finer details of his management techniques being reported are just a pathetic PR stunt by the club. They made a botched attempt to tackle the player power issue and are now trying to paper over the cracks of that failed attempt.

 

Agree putting him on the bench and not bringing him on was insulting to Troy and the club and also putting two keepers on the bench in two recent matches was unnecessary and sticking two fingers up at Gino, better to go with 8 subs than that!

 

Fair points and I know I am biased against Deeney as I don't like his personality and the influence he has within the club (the latter not his fault, should never have been allowed to happen by the owners).

 

It's embarrassing. The leadership of this club love Deeney.

They are insistent that we have. First team coach not a manager, taking away his authority and then completely fail to instill any sort of authority elsewhere, and bend over for Troy

 

I think the timing might be coincidental. This is the longest gap between ganes we get til the next international break so makes sense, we've been really bad for weeks, the dressing room had been lost a while ago and we, and this is a real stretch, might have some new players to add to the team in a few weeks. I think Ivic knew the writing was on the wall and threw in a pipebomb.

Also, remember that most of our 'assets' to sell are attacking players. We aren't attacking and these players look terrible. Sarr has gone from Dembele to Tom Daley in half a season. I doubt that's gone down well.

 

Why did Ivic say last weekend that Deeney was his assistant coach on the pitch (which was weird enough wording) and then get into this stupid spat a few days later which resulted in him being sacked? The whole thing is completely mental. Ordinarily I'd blame Ivic but given the news about Xisco was already doing the rounds after Brentford I presume Ivic read the runes and decided to go out all guns blazing.

 

Thing is, Ivic knew he was being sacked let’s face it. He probably thought Troy was part of that (who knows if he was...), but he brought on 2 defenders and was candid in his interviews afterwards. Stories about Xisco came out well in advance of the game so you can be sure Ivic/his agent were aware of what was happening.

This was Ivic’s way of not going quietly, trying to shed light on the club on his way out and attempting to correctly/incorrectly throw Troy under the bus along with it.

Let’s face it, had we sold Troy on deadline day, would Ivic still be in a job? I really really doubt it.

 

I wouldn’t trust him or his colleagues to write their own names. When it was GT the Mail was laying into no one had any hesitation in rejecting their cobblers and I don’t now just because I don’t revere the current set up or players. I doubt they have any real contacts and if they do it has little bearing on what they write.

Fact is, you wanted Ivic to go. Why do you need to fantasise a player mutiny to see him off? Why can’t the management simply have noted what you did and what everyone else has?

It may be that Ivic would have had more time if he had a brilliant relationship with everyone and could point to an upward trajectory, but that’s simply wasn’t possible.

The papers have one task. To sell stories.

 

I think it's obvious there is a problem with player power at Watford, but at the end of the day, footballers want to play football and they want to win. They will, by nature, buy into someone they believe will give them that.

We need a strong head coach, but someone the players can relate too. Will Munoz get that respect? We'll see, but once the players Wiki him and see sees only had 11 games on his CV, they may think Christmas has come early and it's party time.

This club is crying out for a manager of men. Not a head coach, and this is why we keep on failing. The chopping and changing is all too common place and players don't take the latest guy seriously. Why would they? They know he'll be gone in a few months.

Sure they will try harder for a few weeks because that's human nature. You try a little harder at the beginning in order to win over the new guy but in the end that all fades away.

The problem with Ivic was his draconian methods. I never heard a player once speak warmly of him in all this time. Usually when you hear players they subconsciously give things away. You can tell they all really liked Silva and Gracia. The British players loved Pearson. No one liked QSF or Mazzarri....or Ivic.

Football is not like a normal job, where you don't need to like your boss. In football you need to respect and be inspired by the guy leading the coaching sessions. You have to want to work hard for him. This is why Gracia was so successful, however, he started letting players get away with too much and once that starts to happen, respect gets lost and players take liberties. The players loved Silva's training methods.

Maybe Munoz will get the feel good factor back, and I'm sure he will initially, but he has to be the real deal in order to maintain that, and this is the big question mark over him.

 

The bit I don’t get (unless I’ve missed something) is didn’t Ivic originally say Deeney was on the bench for disciplinary issues? But wasn’t he on the bench to start with, due to being rested?

 

Or.

They were blinded by his record in Israel and that was the be-all and end-all. No further homework needed on him and how he achieved it.

I see the above as being equally feasible.

 

I didn't want Ivic to go actually, although the Huddersfield decisions did shake that stance somewhat.

And if this guy has no contacts then he sure is lucky that his total shot in the dark guesses keep coming true in relation to Watford!

 

But it’s a never ending circle. We’ve filled our squad with players who have nothing to aim for in life, it’s too easy for them to take a dislike to any given managers techniques, with absolutely no consequences for them.

Let’s say Gino took a stand over what happened at the weekend and backed Ivic, told the rest of the squad he’s here to stay and if you don’t like not being able to use your phone or having to stay in a five star hotel then it’s tough ****. What would be the consequences for the players? They sulk, play rubbish then get dropped. But what would that matter to them? Most of them wouldn’t give a toss.

 

I wouldn’t waste your time. The Mail could comment that Liverpool play in red and Moose would dismiss it as “nonsense tittle tattle from the evil far right media elite”.

 

They did take a long time over the decision and did say they wanted to make sure it was the right one. We all knew it would be Ivic or Struber for some time and most of us were getting frustrated at how long it was taking. You would hope that time was spent doing some proper DD on both of them to make sure they would be a good fit, but I guess we’ll never know. I can’t see that his methods would’ve changed significantly at Watford compared to in Israel though, and the players clearly bought into it there.

 

Good man.

 

The thing is, Gino is absolutely terrified of not getting promotion. He has to appease the players no matter what. This is why the club came out with the statement over Deeney. They are worried he'll bring the dressing room down. They need him in there banging the drum. I'm not sure he's really that person anymore, but he can be if motivated enough.

The board might think they are showing leadership by sacking coaches, but for me that shows weakness. We all know this latest appointment is highly likely to end in failure (hopefully not though). Sucking up to Deeney shows how desperate they are to get promoted.

They need him on board, pulling the dressing room together. They see him as the talisman, and this is why they are allowing him to do what he likes with the radio chat shows and the like. Deeney has the board in his pocket, he knows this, but as long as he delivers with team bonding, they'll happily go along with it.

 

You’re right, we’ll never know if they did the correct homework on him. But seeing as he’s yet another coach gone in such a short space of time, we can probably make a good guess. A lot of the time spent in the summer was because Gino, Duxbury and Giraldi/Giaretta were on holidays and/or in different places I think. We were told a few times they were relaxed about the timeframe.

In reality, I suspect it’s a mixture of both of our theories being true to some extent.

 

Most likely. And the fact that his Tel Aviv side were very watchable as well. Fast and attacking - which on the face of it is where our sellable assets are. That's why I wanted him over all the others.

Sadly he couldn't make chicken salad out of chicken **** with the squad and gave up.

 

Bang on. The only players who I thought put a shift in v Huddersfield were Ken, Garner and Jezza, all of which haven't spent long with this squad of layabouts and bottlers. Ken always gives 100% and must be sick seeing the performances and attitudes around him. He's also gone from playing at the San Siro to Wycombe to top it off.

 

I don’t disagree.

But it’s madness to do it so publicly. Gives the impression that Troy runs the club and they are subservient to his wishes and demands. They must know how that looks to fans after their statement in the summer. How do they pass this off to fans?

 

I’ve spent many decades on Planet Earth and in all of those decades they have been telling lies every day. If you want to dispute that go ahead and become today’s forum laughing stock.

 

Always makes me chuckle about Ken Sema. Despite the club/Ivic's insistence that we sideline players who 'don't want to be here', are we really meant to believe that he didn't want to leave or go back to Udinese?

 

Well this is the truth of it. There's no point in trying to hide the fact.

 

Then they shouldn’t have spouted such b0llocks in the summer after an event that dented a lot of fans support of them. Madness.

 

Let’s celebrate three and a half years of the same Daily Mail story, even if bar Deeney, Cathcart and Capoue, most of the individuals have changed.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f.../Shame-journeymen-players-managers-fired.html

 

Completely agree. Should go without saying, really.

 

I see Deeney is in Talksport this morning airing more dirty laundry

Bloke is an absolute clown

 

Excellent spot. Shame it has to go down the typical Daily Fail 'too many foreigners' route at the end.

 

Tbf I'm pretty sure being a clown is part of the Talksport contract. Probably why he was offered the job in the first place.

 

Is that the Daily Mail at fault or simply, as many have observed, simply the obvious fact that history is actually repeating itself over and over again at Watford?

 

You get a free uniform with the big shoes and a car that falls apart.

 

I’m saying that they will simply sell the same story every time because it sells. They have little real access and most of it is guesswork often based on prejudice.

We know why Ivic went. We had to sit through each awful game. No further tittle tattle required other than why do the board keep on getting it wrong?