If the Hull City players were under any illusions about what Sergej Jakirovic thought about last season’s close shave, his blunt assessment would have cleared away those fears.
The Bosnian, in his first assignment with the media just a couple of hours after his first training session on English soil, delivered a calm, reasoned but precise takedown of City’s failings last season.
From the lack of goals, to a poorly executed shape and players being played out of position. Gaps between units – defence, midfield and attack, to you and I – a lack of ball-winning in midfield, along with a shortage of energy.
In a nutshell, Jakirovic pulled apart Tim Walter and Ruben Selles’ setup, and perhaps, that level of honesty is what’s needed to be able to move forward.
Even when asked if there were any positives to take from last season, despite the nature of the final-day survival, he could offer little. Acun Ilicali, who flanked him, tried to interject and suggest the question was about any positives. “I know, I know,” he replied before going on to say the team had a decent enough October and November.
Even that’s a stretch given it was defeats in November to Oxford United and Sheffield Wednesday that saw the back of Walter.
Those fans who trekked up and down the country, at all times of the day and night, will probably be lapping up that level of honesty.
City survived on goal difference. It was more luck than judgment, if we’re being honest.
In essence, they were just about level par with the team who finished third bottom and survived by the skin of their teeth. To do anything other than try and claim it was a bad season would be pulling the wool over the eyes of those who watched it, week in and week out.
It would be an insult to their intelligence. Bar the odd result here and there, it was a shambles, and it should be labelled as such.
They were a team lacking in quality, personality and bereft of confidence for the majority of the season. A lack of effort may not have been an accusation you could throw their way, but everything Jakirovic said was on the money and saying that means we can all move forward and look to the future.
The job facing him is a big one. He’s got to take a team that avoided relegation on goal difference to one capable of challenging, at least to be in the top 10.
And we know, if you’re in the top 10 come the final month of the season, you’re probably within touching distance of making the top six.
All that for now, can wait.
To begin with, Jakirovic must change the approach. He wants a hard-working team of grafters. One that wins the right to play attractive football. Operating with intensity, energy and the ability to win the ball in midfield before carving out chances that are taken by those capable of taking them.
To do that, he will need some tweaks in the transfer market, namely players in the final third that can put the ball in the net, and he will spend the next six weeks perfecting that plan of attack.
Unlike his predecessors, he comes across as a manager less wedded to their strict styles, but one who has a fairly simple ideology and one that can be effective, especially in the Championship.
In some respects, the modern manager’s determination to stick with their style has hampered so many of them, so it’s refreshing to hear a manager talk less about their ‘philosophy’ and more about doing things that make a team effective.
Fans aren’t stupid, they watch enough football to know where a team is lacking. They all know where City have been lacking in recent seasons, and in his assessment, then Bosnian explained in simple terms.
There was little fanfare, even less fuss. Just a calm, calculated exterior that exudes from the Bosnian. A steely determination to succeed.
No grand gestures or claims about anything. The early signs are positive, but now he must get to work and deliver results.
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