Slaven Bilic – having publicly criticised the lack of the intensity of players in training – may now be forced into shake- up of his backroom staff.
Whilst the manager is responsible for tactics, formation, man management, team selection and identifying transfer targets, he relies heavily on first team coach Edin Turzic and his No 2 Nicola Jurcevic to carry out his training brief on a day to day basis.
Big questions have also been raised about the team’s fitness and the role of 69 year old Milijenk Rak, a former Croatian former long-jumper, who once worked as the trainer for the Croatia national handball team before joining Bilic as a fitness trainer!
Julian Dicks’ as assistant coach has little input on the routines on a daily basis and is another who may come under the microscope.
The issues involved following the manager’s “lack of intensity ” interview on BT Sports were being freely mentioned around the club last night as several key insiders asked the same question: “Then what’s to be done about the issues at Rush Green.”
Bilic had said: “I have to be honest and say we don’t have that intensity like we did last season. We don’t even have it on the training ground.”
That brought horrified gasps from some and ClaretandHugh was told today it posed questions over his choice of backroom staff and that it was time for questions to be asked of them and a shake-up conducted if things were as bad as he appears to have suggested.
If Slaven had hoped to shock the players by his comments they may well backfire and instead create a probe among those responsible for what happens on the training ground.
Didn’t Nikola Jurcevic start some time in the autumn last year due to visa delays.(Think it was Sept 19)
Our best performances were away at City,Liverpool and Arsenal before he was abletomake any impact. Maybe he has to much to say about team affairs. Just a thought
Sorry BD, that must be speculation of the most spurious and, dare I say it, malicious kind. Let’s not start a witch hunt.
I say we dunk him in the pond…if he floats he’s a witch!!
I hate this constant stream of negative finger pointing that all seems to be leaked out via top level sources at the club. Why is it that the board feel the need to push this agenda, is it to make the fans hate Slav and deflect the shocking transfer policy of the summer? Deal with it behind closed doors as a professional outfit would not put it in the media.
However, I make Slav right to publicly question the integrity of his players. It seems it has been said at the training ground and nothing has improved, so time to publicly shame the players into action. It would happen to anyone one of us in our jobs if we were not up to scratch, why not the footballers.