Sheffield United: Updates from Slavisa Jokanovic's pre-match press conference ahead of Bournemouth clash

It’s 10 games, people observe our work and myself and we need to be more competitive, win the games. We understand what our responsibility is and that we must do it. We believe we can find the progress to improve, we have made important steps forward. We were disappointed after the Boro game, they deserved the points and we made some steps backwards, but be strong, head up, don’t give up and be ready for the next challenge. We have 36 games left in this competition.

It’s a completely different challenge, a different team and style of play. We will try to analyse their strengths and weaknesses, they are without any defeats but we want to be fighting with them and be at their level, fighting for similar targets. It’s a great chance for us to check where we are, to try and push for three points.

We know how they play, we are not surprised. They had energy and we were in trouble. They had two shots and scored two very good goals and we couldn’t come back into the game. When we got into the box our decision making was not good, we crossed in the wrong moment or didn’t shoot well enough.

At the moment we have chosen how we want to play, they need to trust and work hard and wait for the moment when I need them, and they must be ready for this moment. It is my decision who I choose, I tried to make some movement and find a way to come back in the game so I made the decision to use some players. I thought about McBurnie and Rhian but I took a different option, but I could use them in games ahead of us. I am not coaching only 11 players. The questions are normal but I must take my decision for games ahead of us, we will take what we believe is the best decision for the team.

Lys started working a few days ago and is an option to be ready for the game. It’s always good when someone is coming back from this kind of situation, and good for him as well that I have the option to use him for the next game.

We know him from before too, he came back a few days ago and has an option to be pat of the team for the next game. He is a guy with good movement, he could be an important player and we’ll see what choices we make for the game.

It’s really good. He’s been the definition of consistency for me, it’s rally impressed me how nothing really changes if we win, lose or draw. We’ll have the same kind of meetings, the staff are watching the game on the bus back home and they’re bang on it. They put together a detailed video, it’s not too long but has all the points they believe we need to get better at. And going forward I think that’ll be a big help.

It’d be a statement, I don’t think they’ve lost and we’re under no illusions, it’ll be tough. They have a good manager and good players but we know on our day we’re a match for anyone and we’ll be going down there looking to get three points. It’s not an easy division, people look at teams who come down to automatically go back up but teams have shown it can be harder than that. We’ll be alright, we need to keep going. The boys are confident and I’m sure we’ll have another meeting with the manager to see where we went wrong and what we need to put right against Bournemouth.