Good interview with Jokaonvic from Daily Mail

[MJG]

Slavisa Jokanovic has Fulham flying high having resolved off-field issues: I know Pep and Jose. I'm no rival so they have less to hide!

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3786003/Slavisa-Jokanovic-Fulham-flying-high-field-struggles-know-Pep-Jose-m-no-rival-hide.html#ixzz4K7D1Nxia


    Fulham is Slavisa Jokanovic's seventh job in football management
    He had spells in Serbia, Thailand, Bulgaria, Spain, Israel and Watford 
    Jokanovic, 48, arrived took up top job at Craven Cottage last December 
    Fulham finished the campaign 11 points from danger in 20th place 
    A win against Burton on Tuesday night could lift Fulham second in table

By Adam Crafton for the Daily Mail



After posing for pictures on the wooden seats of a sun-soaked Craven Cottage, Slavisa Jokanovic breaks into something approaching a love letter to English football.

'It really is one of the best stadiums here,' he smiles. 'It's a postcard venue, beautiful and romantic. The sun is shining and it's beside the River Thames. Jose Mourinho says the same to me. As a kid in the former Yugoslavia, the English game was my first contact with foreign football. I remember black and white crackling pictures of Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. I have memories of Kevin Keegan scoring goals at the Kop.

'I didn't have the chance to watch Real Madrid so it was all about England. I only saw Barcelona and Real when I moved to Spain in the 1990s. When I think of English football, it's Brian Clough at Forest.


'When I think of English stadiums, it's the Kop at Anfield, Highbury and the romance of Craven Cottage, not the Emirates or whatever the new stadiums are called.

'I don't see the Emirates as symbolic of English football. I was managing in Israel last year and found Luton against Cambridge on TV. Even at that level, stadiums are full and people really care.'

Fulham is Jokanovic's seventh job in management after spells in Serbia, Thailand, Bulgaria, Spain, Israel and Watford.


Jokanovic, 48, arrived at Fulham last December, inheriting a team three points above the relegation zone. Results picked up sufficiently to end the campaign 11 points from danger but Fulham finished 20th, the club's lowest placing since 1999.

'I thought the job would be more simple,' he says. 'For a few months, it was really hard. I realised major work was needed, on and off the field.

'Weird things were happening. We had to score three goals to win a game. We conceded 35 goals from set-pieces and the next worst team only conceded 20. We conceded a lot of penalties.

[Image: Fulham lost crucial playes in Moussa Dembele (pictured) and Ross McCormack in pre-season ] 
Fulham lost crucial playes in Moussa Dembele (pictured) and Ross McCormack in pre-season



'At the training ground, I needed new pitches. The owner was a bit surprised because it had never been mentioned to him before that the pitches weren't right. But they weren't. It wasn't a vanity thing. It was an important step to improve the squad and play the right way. It was a huge benefit for the club. We now have excellent conditions to train.'

The new surfaces at Motspur Park are reaping rewards. Fulham have started brightly, they are in a play-off position and their possession play has proved pivotal.

Jokanovic, who calls himself an 'artificial Spaniard' having played there for much of the 90s, has seen his side make 3,235 passes, more than any other team in the division this season.

He first fell for the capital when he arrived at Chelsea in 2001 and quickly realised the demands of English football.



'I was 32 by that stage — plus VAT,' he jokes. 'It was too fast, too quick. I found it aggressive, I came from Spain where the idea was never to lose the ball. At Chelsea, we were going through the air rather than the ground. It was a very old team — the Ken Bates era. Many coaches have come out: Albert Ferrer, Gianfranco Zola, Jimmy-Floyd Hasselbaink, Gus Poyet.'

A win against Burton on Tuesday night could lift Fulham to second in the table. It has been a surprising start for a club who didn't always appear to be on an upward trajectory during the summer. Fulham began pre-season with a threadbare squad and lost the providers of 40 goals from last season with the departure of Moussa Dembele to Celtic and Ross McCormack to Aston Villa. Nineteen players left and just 14 arrived.

'The team have begun the season with a different mentality,' he says. 'We started pre-season with nine or 10 players. If you'd asked me on day one of pre-season, I couldn't have told you how the squad would look. But we had a plan. The young players came in.

'We lost McCormack but we have tightened up and play as a group.


'We have won two games 1-0 this season. We had to learn to see games out. If Manchester United are 1-0 up against Sunderland, they see out the storm and boom, boom, it's 2-0, 3-0. We need this ability to suffer and bear things out. A lot of it is confidence. We came back to draw against Cardiff. Last year there would have been no reaction.'

There was further tension when Jokanovic criticised the club's recruitment policy. He went public with his appraisal of Craig Kline, an American director of statistical recruitment who signs off every signing the club makes.

As transfers stalled, Jokanovic suggested openly to the media they'd be better off asking questions to 'this guy — sitting in the directors' box.' Fulham had, for example, received a glowing recommendation from Mourinho for United's starlet Andreas Perreira but Kline's analytics did not support the move as the player did not have enough data to be assessed.

'I am always fighting for the team,' says Jokanovic. 'I want to make the fans happy. The club has made an important effort to cover the squad, I'm happy.'



Jokanovic achieved promotion with Watford in 2015 but decided to leave after receiving a contract offer worth half what the lowest-paid Premier League manager earned at the time. He has unfinished business in England and is in touch with his luminary friends including Mourinho and Pep Guardiola.

'Radomir Antic, the former Real Madrid and Barcelona coach, was living in Madrid very close to me,' he says. 'I had a thousand chats about football with him. I don't think he has ever watched a film in his life, you go into his house and it's football, football, football. I have spoken with Diego Simeone, I have observed Carlo Ancelotti's training sessions.

'I have some very close mutual friends with Pep Guardiola — Jose Mourinho came along to Craven Cottage last season when he was between jobs. I am not asking for secrets, just normal questions and observations.

'Most coaches are open to exchange opinions. I'm not their rival so they have less to hide. Mourinho says to me, "These aren't observations to fix your life, but a different angle". I listen but make my own decisions.


'Last year, we had a bad run. I asked Scott Parker to take the boys out for a meal, to let them spend time together without the staff and see if they could clear things.

'It's hard these days. The players are on their phones, tablets and everything. We are finding time for each other. Where we eat, for example, at the training ground is a pretty small space. Last season there were too many people there, so players were seeing it was busy and heading straight home.

'Now we have a room exclusively for the first-team group to exchange opinion and eat together and get to know each other.'

After leaving Watford, Jokanovic was head-hunted for the Maccabi Tel Aviv job by sporting director Jordi Cruyff. 'Cruyff says that Roberto Martinez recommended me. I don't know Martinez but Cruyff and him are like brothers. He had been watching me at Watford and thought my tactics were very brave. Now I hope Fulham fans will enjoy watching my teams.'

[Mince n Tatties]

Very interesting article.
Love the bit where he says that the Cottage is a great place.I think
It was Man City fans who when surveyed about away grounds gave
Craven Cottage as their fav.Might of been one of the Gallagher brothers
who quoted "Proper Football Ground".

[Holders]

Very good, thanks for posting. I wonder what was wrong with the training pitches.

[MJG]

Very good, thanks for posting. I wonder what was wrong with the training pitches.

Grass quality, sizes and some were in very odd positions at the training ground. For example one area where they took corners was actually cramped and on a downslope....complete opposite for example at Fulham. Not exactly replicating what they were going to be doing.
Not sure we have gone this far but Man City have laid different types of grass and artificial surfaces at their training ground to cover all types they might encounter in the season.

[Oakeshott]

The interview re-enforces in my mind that we have struck real gold in having SJ as our manager.

[Chutney]

"Last year, we had a bad run. I asked Scott Parker to take the boys out for a meal, to let them spend time together without the staff and see if they could clear things" - Parker is so important to us, the manager and players all look up to him.

[RaySmith]

Great to read a positive article about Slavisa and how the club  is doing this season - our good results and league position have seemed invisible to most media, but when we lose, like Saturday, we are written off.

A good interview too -great  to get to know Slavisa and his footballing philosophy  a bit.

Perhaps this  attention to the  training pitches might help us improve our corner taking. The discrepancy has been noted before, and reading about it you think - well, why don't they do something about it then.

Slavisa obviously realises  these details are important , and the training facilities generally. Maybe obvious, but how long have the club been training in  facilities that might not be up to scratch, and practising corners that are the opposite of what they will encounter at the Cottage?

Thanks for posting.

[ScalleysDad]

So 'it' was Andreas Perreira. The little black book must be the size of a small library and it might just come in handy later on. Before later on comes along though he has plenty of work to do. I wonder where on these new pitches at Motspur he gets the idea that Cairney wide left has any merit?
Great to hear he views Parker as the group leader and of course The Cottage is a special place. Need to fill it and make it rock again.

[Lighthouse]

A nice article. Not worth looking too deep into it. A manager must have success and the fans must have patience. A few pretty pictures and the odd quote that may or may not be accurate will mean nothing if we struggle again this year. Here is hoping we can have a dull, middle of the road season or better. Then articles like this will mean something.

[hovewhite]

Interesting article,just hope we support him and the team when we hit a dodgy spell which every team will ,and SJ stays of course being backed 100% by khan!

[filham]

Over 3,000 more passes than any other Championship team, this is a significant stat and shows that Jocanovic is hooked on possession football. We have seen that most of the possession is in our own half and slows the game down enabling opposition defences to organise themselves.

Jocanovic may need to adjust his tactics before too long.

[H4usuallysitting]

Mr Kline should be recommending a contract extension

[RaySmith]

I suppose he'll get the sack if we don't have the right points total at Christmas.

[The Enclosurite]

Over 3,000 more passes than any other Championship team, this is a significant stat and shows that Jocanovic is hooked on possession football. We have seen that most of the possession is in our own half and slows the game down enabling opposition defences to organise themselves.

Jocanovic may need to adjust his tactics before too long.

I think you missed a comma.  It's not 3000 more, that really would be an amazing stat!!

[ToodlesMcToot]

Interesting article,just hope we support him and the team when we hit a dodgy spell which every team will ,and SJ stays of course being backed 100% by khan!

Well, Jim Woodcock (think that's the man everyone writes to when they want to get word to Mr. Khan) has stated several times that Mr. Khan personally put great effort into getting Slavisa to join. So, it is out there that Slavisa is his choice. Khan will not want his choice failing, certainly. I'd say that he will get that backing.

Thanks for the article MJG. A very nice read.

[bog]

Gasp! I was in shock when I was thumbing though the Mail and there was a full page about Fulham!!!! Made a very good read.

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[Jims Dentist]

Over 3,000 more passes than any other Championship team, this is a significant stat and shows that Jocanovic is hooked on possession football. We have seen that most of the possession is in our own half and slows the game down enabling opposition defences to organise themselves.

Jocanovic may need to adjust his tactics before too long.

Well said Filham, it's not working well at home.

[Asotosyios]

I think our good start has made a lot of us forget that this is a completely new team and needs time. There will be good games, there will bad ones; if we can stay close to the top 6 come Christmas, we may have a chance for a shot to promotion this year.

[JoelH5]

I think our good start has made a lot of us forget that this is a completely new team and needs time. There will be good games, there will bad ones; if we can stay close to the top 6 come Christmas, we may have a chance for a shot to promotion this year.

Agree.. Who realistically wouldn't have taken 8/9th come Christmas?

I think we will get better with time and hopefully one of the strikers hits a bit of form and has a good season.