Anthony Joshua vs Oleksandr Usyk 2: AJ's trainer Robert Garcia criticises 'totally wrong' gameplan

Anthony Joshua‘s new trainer Robert Garcia believes that he did not have the right gameplan going into his defeat to Oleksandr Usyk.

The former IBF super-featherweight world champion suggested that Joshua had lost faith in his former coach Rob McCracken prior to that fight.

Joshua, 32, got rid of his former Team GB coach after he was convincingly beaten on points by the Ukrainian in September, losing the WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO heavyweight titles in the process.

Speaking to iFL TV, Garcia, who is the older brother of Mikey Garcia, insisted that AJ will benefit from a changing of the guard.

He said: “When you have somebody that’s a obviously lot smaller than you and you have the weight, height, reach and power advantages, then take advantage of that.

“It seemed like they had a different game plan.

“I wouldn’t even want to say it was a ‘game plan’, maybe it was just the wrong instructions. Anthony is the type of fighter who listens to his corner so he did what he was told and it was totally wrong.

“But the way it looks now, he’s listening to us, we have our meetings with him and he’s happy that we’re working together, he’s hungry again and he’s told us personally that he wants to do it for himself, but for us too. He said ‘you are going to deserve this win and I want to do it for you’.

“That’s huge, that’s something coming from a fighter that very few think like. Most fighters think about themselves and, yeah, they love their trainers and, yeah, they want to win big fights together, but at the end it’s only about themselves. He told us this one is for us.”

While Garcia’s appointment has been well received by some, it hasn’t gone down quite so well with others.

However, it’s worth pointing out that Joshua has chosen Garcia