I believe it's more complicated than that, and that that 'good job' was as much forced on him by circumstance as anything else. He continues to demonstrate with almost all aspects of his coaching other than eventually 2 months in fielding our best players in their best positions what an inexplicable operator he is, and there's no particular evidence of any great coaching steel of his on the pitch - we don't even play good football the vast majority of the time, and we don't have a particular style. He still obsessively favours certain players even when they are so clearly not fit to play 90 minutes and in desperate need of a rest, and his subs rarely make any sense. Yes, he's taken the handbrake off, and that's good, but his results have mostly come from fielding a collection of some of the best and most expensive players in the league and exerting that quality over Championship opposition. If we get promoted then it will be a good job done, but there's a great deal of context in that to not ignore.
Yep done well. If he fails it won’t be on him. It will be because the imbeciles in charge left him with no centre mids.
Good thing Gray is back among the goals and JP is available or else we'd have to bring back Murray from the cold
As I said > If we get promoted then it will be a good job done, but there's a great deal of context in that to not ignore.
Take that all day. Never really got out of second gear so not to much energy spent. Forest with an extra 24 hours of recovery will hopefully not hurt us. The players shouldn’t be to exhausted after that. Obviously Cleverley going off injured is a concern. Hopefully it’s just a minor sprained ankle or something like that and he will be fit by the weekend. Hungbo done well when he came on. I’ve smashed Gray on here relentlessly and unapologetically. Tonight he did his job and I have to give credit where credit is due. Hopefully that will ignite him from now until the end of the season.
Think its a bit of a nonsense slagging of Xisco at this point, considering no one had heard of him when he came in, and a fair few on here (not me) thought it would be guaranteed a complete disaster. This is a squad of players he has inherited, and that many criticised (including me to a certain degree) for not improving on, personnel wise.
At half time I purchased a " I was there when Gray scored" T - shirt. Its now obsolete, and I have to purchase an even rarer " I was there when Gray scored....and then scored another one" T shirt.
Funny how they looked bang average for the most part under Ivic. If it was as simple as that, it would be us and Bournemouth comfortable running away with the league.
How refreshing was it to watch a team that got tackled just get straight back up and not try and con the ref every time?
Job was done really, midweek away at a tough struggler, never easy. If Clevs is injured agreed that will be terrible. Thought Sarr was brilliant as was Kiko yet again. Masina & Sema pretty poor. Sarr needs a rest surely, 2-0 up at 83rd minute just take him off? I know they're professional athletes but kid looks shattered. Hopefully Gray has some confidence back, an addition of a potential source of goals to our team no matter how little will always be useful in a promotion push. Bachman scares me, Foster grins too much but I feel safer with him in goal. At time of writing Swansea & Bournemouth drawing is good too. Right now it doesn't matter how glamorous they are, just need to keep winning.
I've already outlined my thoughts on him as a coach in detail. You've already replied to it. I've said nothing about what you are, or are not allowed to say, or indeed think. That will have to be enough for you, mate.
One of the more comfortable wins this season. I thought TC was holding his shin but we will see. PZ my MotM and credit to Gray,Gerd Muller like with two touches and two goals. The Sky commentator withered for England. Wycombe will certainly go down.
In fairness they looked bang average under Xisco as well until he changed to a formation that was never really available to Ivic due to the lack of a left back and no Will Hughes. That's not meant as a criticism of Xisco, by the way, more that I think Ivic has been judged unbelievably harshly given what he had available.
That was alright, most of the games we did what we needed to (couple of bits of luck) Gray scored two good goals (I feel dirty) Clean sheet 3 points 3 goals closer to Brentford Look in control for 95% of the match Didn’t do the Watford thing 9f losing to the bottom side A lot of chances negatives Cleverly going off Could have done with 4 goals to make goal difference better think on the balance Norwich did us a favour , they are going to get automatic promotion and have allowed us to catch back up with Brentford , need the Swansea game to go our way
None of our big guns looked 'bad' under Ivic, they all sparkled at times. Besides, Xisco has had something resembling our best XI available more often than Ivic, I'm sure we'd have looked better in a 4-2-3-1 than whatever systems we played under him
Thanks for proving my point. Some have already made their minds up and planted their flag in the sand, and are unable to give credit when due, presumably through fear of losing a bit of face.
We should have held onto Ikpeazu, big lump who doesn't score but 'puts himself about' and 'gives the opposition centre backs a tough night' Hes Deeney's natural heir
Ivic had the best player in the league at his disposal and wasted him for half a season. Xisco started to do that same but thankfully realised his mistake more quickly.
A nice quite nights work done professionally, no fuss no bother, 3 more points Its all going to come down to getting 13 points from the last 5 games
Why can’t people acknowledge that it’s both? He’s done a lot better since a glaringly obvious formation and personal change was forced upon him, immediately prior to that we did particularly poorly and dropped points against poor sides. He makes baffling subs every single game, which surely give us an idea about his actual abilities as a manger. A question to you would be, do you think that since day one, he has done the absolute best he possibly could, and that we are in the highest possible position with the most points we could’ve possibly had?