The official TWF Kenny Jackett IN/OUT thread

[Kenny]

Second season but hey ho. Seriously he was too loyal and too nice to certain players and that cost us. FACT

Even Mick says he is too loyal to certain players. Even blamed their poor run this season on that.

 

[machin05]

Second season but hey ho. Seriously he was too loyal and too nice to certain players and that cost us. FACT

Wasn't it his 3rd season? First we got beat in playoff, second we finished outside the top six and third we went up as champions.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

Third season methinks. Playoffs, failure and then champions.

Your correct Jack. I remember the ghost penalty at Blackpool..

 

[Paddingtonwolf]

With Sako having left, Dicko being out for the season, and Afobe not at his best, is it any wonder we are struggling a little. Any team at this level would find it difficult to cope with such a situation.

Sorry - that is rubbish. THEY KNEW Sako was off, and they knew with a long run-in. It should have been dealt with. Nobody can take stick for Dicko admittedly, but the reason Afobe is lukewarm is lack of service, most of which came from the player they didn't replace.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

It took Jackett an age to sign Ojo on loan knowing Van La Parra was a bag of steaming fucking dog turd. At first we saw a cock eyed midfield without wingers, then it settled down to a 4-4-2 then back to tried an trusted two holding midfielders then to fucking three at the back with Henry as a wingback. Jackett has had a fucking mare this season.

 

[FrankMunro-371]

Sorry - that is rubbish. THEY KNEW Sako was off, and they knew with a long run-in. It should have been dealt with. Nobody can take stick for Dicko admittedly, but the reason Afobe is lukewarm is lack of service, most of which came from the player they didn't replace.

It may be rubbish in your view, but it is my opinion. Please do not act so high and mighty.

 

[Boozad]

My heart wants him to stay as I genuinely like the bloke and he has been a joy to have here following Dean fucking Saunders and he gave us our club back, but my head tells me he's got to go as selections, recruitment, formations and last night's tactical AIDS prove he's unwittingly taking it away again.

 

[Kenny]

It may be rubbish in your view, but it is my opinion. Please do not act so high and mighty.

He is just pointing out that 1 part of the 3 issues you raised we had plenty of time to replace and then by not doing that we created another issue you raised. The 3rd was just hard luck.

 

[FrankMunro-371]

I would be very sorry to see KJ leave. He took over a team in disarray, and has done a good job. I think the biggest concern is with Morgan wanting out, we are in limbo until a new owner comes in.

 

[Kenny]

I think the biggest concern is with Morgan wanting out, we are in limbo until a new owner comes in.

If KJ goes (I don't want him to go) we will get a manager (I wouldn;t be confident of it being a good one though). Look at Villa, they have replaced 2 managers despite being up for sale. Same at WBA, same at Birmingham. The problem comes with what budget the manager would get and if the "Wolves way" is continued or we are left bringing more delights like Grant Holt.

 

[AlanD]

I'm still undecided so voted 'In'. A couple of performances like yesterday and I could easily vote the other way.

As already stated by many, the inconsistent selections and plays are the problem, which is down to KJ not the players. KJ has to analyse his own decision making over the last few months and then admit he got things wrong. If he doesn't then Wolves will be mid to lower finishers at best. We have the players to finish in the top 3 in my opinion. We are lacking a consistent guiding hand.

 

[Quirkafleeg]

Down to 66% now. The tide is turning..

 

[Quirkafleeg]

I've just voted In. 65% now :emot-fuckoff:

 

[Kenny]

Wishy washy bastards

 

[pr0sl0]

So, almost exactly a year ago (a year in six days' time, in fact), I wrote this: http://www.wolvesforum.co.uk/showthread.php?26441-What-do-we-think-so-far&p=705389#post705389

I have some conflicting feelings about the season so far, some positive, some negative. This is coloured by the last two matches - a week ago it was possible to say "about a third of the season has gone past, and that's usually long enough to get a handle on a team's 'true' level, so I think we should expect top 6". The problem is that it's still possible to say "about a third of the season has gone past, etc. etc., so we need to be cautious about expecting top 6".

I'm swaying towards the current wobble being one of bad form, and therefore temporary, but I also think it's dreamland for anyone thinking that we're seriously going to be up there in the automatic places come May. Deutsch's post in the Derby verdict thread has nailed a lot of the issues, so I won't reiterate those here, but suffice to say that the limitations of certain parts of the squad - and manager - are becoming apparent, and the January window is going to be key for addressing these issues.

The positives, then: we have, I think, a very good core of players, though not necessarily a spine. Ikeme is usually a very good keeper, Evans and McDonald are one of the best midfield pairings in the league when they click, Golbourne's a great full-back (when he's allowed to play!), and Sako/Henry/VLP make us very strong in the wide areas. And, when this team manages to get a match to play at its preferred tempo, with the correct combination of players on the pitch, it's both great on the eye and effective both in defence and attack.

The negative, in that case, is that too much of our positive stuff is contingent on other things being OK. For example, against Derby there were at least a half dozen times Henry received the ball in the air and flicked it forward down the channel. (A lot of you were angry about this on the matchday thread.) That usually left the ball to go out of play for a goal kick or throw-in, but what I thought was crucial was that that's exactly the kind of ball Dicko wants - he'll chase those all day long, and he's managed to turn a few of those into crosses or passes which have in turn created goal-scoring opportunities.

Except, of course, Dicko isn't playing right now, and so Clarke doesn't play that way - he's not fast enough to chase a ball like that, or intuitive enough to know the ball's about to head that way - and so he sits in the middle of the pitch on his heels, waiting for the ball to be fed to him directly with a pass.

This isn't to say that Dicko would have won us that game against Derby, but I do think his presence would have meant the game played very differently because the entire structure of how we currently play relies on every cog in the machine doing its job. Our players, in other words, don't have much of a Plan B if the usual tricks aren't working, and for them to work relies on a chain of events where any single step can ruin the entire process.

We have a set number of attacking routines:

1) The fullbacks pass on to the wide player ahead of them and then run on beyond them to wait for the pass, and then fire that into the channels (for Dicko to chase) or cross it (for Dicko or Edwards to get on the end of and either fire at goal or knock down for the other to fire at goal).
2) The centre-backs pass to either Evans or McDonald, who then passes to the other (one sits deeper than the other, and that's usually McDonald), and they then pass it to Edwards who then tries to feed it through to Dicko OR, more commonly, feeds it out wide where it's then returned with a cross.
3) Either of the above, but Sako and Henry cut inside instead of crossing and try running at the full-backs to either force a foul or find the run of another player who can be passed to, who will then fire.
4) Sako does something unexpected.

Scouts from others teams will have seen this, and realised that there's an easy way to make sure we can't make this style work. Press us high up the pitch and close off the opportunities to pass forward either in the middle or the wings, and the result is what we saw last week against both Derby and Ipswich - a team that has to resort to passing it along the backline, back and forth, until someone gets bored and lumps it forward to one of the attacking four, who's usually half the length of the pitch away by this point as they try to escape the marking and pressing of the other team's midfield. Edwards can mitigate this to some extent by being able to run so much more than most other players, but I think that's why Jacobs isn't getting in the side right now - he's too lightweight to be able to act as he needs to, as the fulcrum around which the other parts of the team move.

Here's where Jackett's going to earn his money. He has to show he understands that we need to have a second plan for this kind of situation, as it's clear that without all the right players on the pitch and in form - Evans/McDonald to anchor, Edwards to shuttle back and forth as a connection, Dicko to chase and knock back, Sako to provide improvisation - we're easy to shut out. And when that happens we really shouldn't be surprised that two young centre-backs playing in this league for the first time are finding it a struggle, and are being outwitted by more experienced and mobile forwards. The Derby drubbing was telegraphed for weeks - at least as long ago as the Millwall result.

I thought before the season began we'd be top six, and I still think we will, but it'll be tight. Key to ensuring this will be the following:

1) Confidence. This squad is young, and confidence can, to an extent, compensate for skill or ability against tough opponents. We beat the three recently-relegated teams at the start of the season when our confidence was high and theirs was low, and that's not a coincidence. Jackett has to make sure heads don't drop. (And also, when we play the first FA Cup match in early January, *please* take it seriously - a good cup run with some comfortable wins against lower league teams, if we're drawn against them, will do us wonders.)
2) Signing players for positions we're weak. Especially right-back, no 10, striker. Doherty's limitations are now evident and Ricketts' experience and ability isn't the obvious step above the competition that it was last year, so we need a better right-back. We also need to find a number 10 who offers us something different to Edwards if Jacobs isn't going to make (and I like the guy, but I'm not sure he will). And, of course, we need a striker to replace Dicko. Not compete with - replace. I like Dicko, but he's not that good, and his importance is (as I've said above) more about getting those around him to click instead of being someone who himself excels. I also think we need another centre-back. Batth and Stearman make a good partnership because they form the classic big lump/more nimble defensive duo, but if Stearman isn't the answer then we need to get someone else in. There are also questions to be asked about whether Batth is capable of playing at a higher level than this.
3) Tactics. As mentioned by others, Jackett now has to show what he can do - he's never had to face this kind of lull in form with Wolves, and his responses so far have been worrying. Iffy team selections, poor substitutions, and most troubling of all is his seeming inability to anticipate the tactical set-up of the opposition. He needs to up his game.

Fingers crossed here that the second half of the season is more 13/14 (from winning unconvincingly to winning with flair) than 12/13 (from winning unconvincingly to losing without dignity).

What's kind of amazing is that so much of this is still completely relevant and true. Doherty's limitations are still obvious - but we've given him a four-year contract extension. We still don't really have a centre-back partnership that feels trustworthy, we're still lacking a decent alternative at 10 for Edwards (if Wallace doesn't work out), we've still got a young squad whose ability is often reliant on confidence, we've still not got a player who can do what Dicko does for us (as good as Afobe is, he's a different player, and he can't do Dicko's chasing and running), and so on, and so on.

Most damning is that the tactical problems are still really obvious, though. If a team does a decent job of getting at us and stopping us passing it from defence to attack we resort to long ball almost immediately. It doesn't work for us, and what's worse is that this season we don't have what amounted to a plan B last time: Bakary Sako getting frustrated and making a chance out of nothing. It worries me so much that the response from the coaching staff to the players having to lump it every time things aren't going their way isn't to fight that happening, and instead play to it by getting a player like Grant Holt in. It comes across as desperate stuff from Jackett - I've never been convinced in him on a tactical level but this is dismal, outdated thinking. And the thing I did rate him as, as a man manager, looks not to be working, so I can't really say I've got much more patience.

If we lose on Saturday, then he's gone for me. Use the international break to get someone new in and give them some time to get settled into the job before the first competitive fixture. It's harsh, but doing the same to Mick at this time of year in his last season might have saved us.

 

[arklowolf]

Out. Said it weeks ago get Pearson in. Just need to see the length of contract that's been given to McDonald to tell me that Jackett doesn't have a clue.

 

[Jolemai]

Out. Said it weeks ago get Pearson in. Just need to see the length of contract that's been given to McDonald to tell me that Jackett doesn't have a clue.

Remind us all what that was please?

 

[AlanD]

Wishy washy bastards

Just being cautious. Look what happened after the last 'Nice Guy' was hounded out. We got three complete idiots running the show until KJ arrived. I'll give KJ 2 games after the break, if there is no change then you can have my 'Out' vote.

 

[arklowolf]

Three years as far as I know.

 

[Parkins left foot]

Been debating with myself all day which side of the fence to come down on with this - really wanted Kenny to turn it around but hope is fading.

Just still on the in side, but the next match is crucial. Burnley a decent side in good form with a manager who gives the appearance of knowing what he is doing - so win, draw or lose I want to see a sensible formation/players in the right positions/appropriate subs & a positive performance. Whatever the outcome if that happens I would give him more time.

Any more weird stuff ALA Bristol then for me time is up