Parker Untenable?

[Logicalman]

... with a GD equal to fourth place and 2 points outside the playoffs and in 8th place, and lost to a team who beat Forest (in 5th btw) in their last away outing. Doesn't exactly sound like all doom and gloom to me. Try putting the positives with the negatives and we see more of a balance.

Take one look at Leeds remaining draw for the first half of the season (Hull, Cardiff, Huddersfield, Blackburn, Luton, Middlesbough & Reading), they could easily be on 49 points starting the game against us in Round 23. Even whose, I could easily see Leeds and WBA running away with the two automatic promotion spots for the last half of the season, especially if Leeds get a striker. Is Parker the right manager for the playoffs or next season?

If SP can get us into the PlayOffs, then there is no reason to doubt he can get us through them, wouldn't that be a way to look at it? It's all results driven.

I doubt, given the season up until now, that we are even looking at an automatic promotion place, but the playoffs are doable, and that provides two opportunities to advance upwards. I care less whether two other teams might run away into the top 2 slots if we aren't up to the task, I care solely whether we are one of those teams that covet the 3 promotion places.

I think it's pretty obvious the media hype about us being a shoe-in to go up was just that, hype, and I, for one, was not phased by that, as we all know on here, it is a rare thing to be a successful certainty when it come to promotion from the Championship.

Whilst I appreciate the sentiment, currently, I have no faith we'd win the playoffs. We aren't consistent enough and seem too easily predictable.

Unfortunately, even with someone having a cup half full mentality might well agree with you there.

Interestingly enough, stats have been mentioned on this thread enough times, that I looked at the last 10 years of playoffs and promotions from the Fizzy League t/w relegation from the Prem on consecutive seasons.

Only on 3 occasions have the three teams promoted survived the following season, and of the other 7 occasions, for 3 times 1 has survived and the rest 2 have survived.
Of those gaining automatic promotion, at least one has survived each season, and 5 times both have survived. For the playoff winners, just 4 managed it for one season.

[Matt10]

Still don't understand how people can say we have useless possession, or slow possession, when we are 3rd in most shots total, and 3rd for most average.

It's like everyone still stuck on the Cardiff City match in which Ream and Mawson literally play back and forth, but are not realizing that Cardiff set up in strictly a man marking system, which was incredibly difficult to penetrate, yet still managed to win the shot count at 11 to their 9.

As I've been saying all season, it's our conversion rate. 23 goals is too low. Especially when 12 of those are for one player. Bobby Reid alone, it's not fair that he's a double-digit goal scorer, and we haven't gotten one goal out of him. One could argue it's Parker's fault, but that would be out of context, because we all have seen the chances that Reid has had to get on the scoring sheet.

I think Parker is genuinely not getting the best out of his players' goal scoring capabilities currently. Defensively it's another thing though. We're never really broken down by high possession teams, we're just up against good finishers on counter-attacks. I'd love to see a stat of our goals conceded and what % of them are counter-attacks vs measured passing sequences. I am not sure how often other tactical systems are tested against our defenders in practice. I'd assume there'd be a practice, or two, that prepare for those scenarios - so I'm not necessarily going to question the coaches here.

Overall, Parker is establishing his system quite well. The logic of having useless possession, or boring play, is just another one of those things that happens throughout a community. Power of suggestion, thoughts become things, all that. However, the stats do not lie, the video does not lie. It's a good and effective system. It just needs more finishers to put the ball in the back of the net. 

[Spirit of 2000]

2 things in answer to matt10 above

1) The beloved stats are skewed somewhat by the Reading & Millwall thrashings - 2 sides who set up horribly against us as well as being poor sides generally, as time goes on more & more sides - especially those with savvy managers are finding it increasingly easy to negate us and then hit us hard on the break with pace. Almost too easy ... let Fulham have the ball, press them & wait for the error & possession to be turned over, get in behind them with pace & directness. The trend is going the wrong way. Compare the last 5 games to the 5 before that when teams were still getting to grips with how to set up and look at the shots on target figures. The secrets out and we seem to have no answer or plan b.


2) Quite simply if you attack with purpose, tempo & pace in transition you'll likely end up with your shots on goal & chances being against exposed goalkeepers and defenders on their heels and in disarray - ours are more likely to be from distance with defenders & keeper set. The QUALITY of the shots on goal need to be taken into consideration, so Parker trotting out the stat for this reason and the one above renders his point a lot less valid.

[Matt10]

2 things in answer to matt10 above

1) The beloved stats are skewed somewhat by the Reading & Millwall thrashings - 2 sides who set up horribly against us as well as being poor sides generally, as time goes on more & more sides - especially those with savvy managers are finding it increasingly easy to negate us and then hit us hard on the break with pace. Almost too easy ... let Fulham have the ball, press them & wait for the error & possession to be turned over, get in behind them with pace & directness. The trend is going the wrong way. Compare the last 5 games to the 5 before that when teams were still getting to grips with how to set up and look at the shots on target figures. The secrets out and we seem to have no answer or plan b.


2) Quite simply if you attack with purpose, tempo & pace in transition you'll likely end up with your shots on goal & chances being against exposed goalkeepers and defenders on their heels and in disarray - ours are more likely to be from distance with defenders & keeper set. The QUALITY of the shots on goal need to be taken into consideration, so Parker trotting out the stat for this reason and the one above renders his point a lot less valid.

You're right, against Millwall and Reading are skewed for stats alone. Millwall match wasn't that much related to total shots though, we still only nabbed 11 total. Reading against 10 men, we managed I believe our highest with 16. So that's 27 shots and 8 goals. We have a total of 214. 187 other shots were created somehow.

Take stats aside, we get into the opposition's defensive third more often than they do to us. That is a staple of our attack. It doesn't always result in shots because we also cross the ball in. We haven't had good runs into the box though, so we aren't getting on the end of them.

Despite the overall result, Hull looked out of sorts against us defensively. We raced our way into their defensive third about 15 times in the space of the opening 30 minutes. We sent in several crosses that didn't find receivers though. We had our opposite winger too far out wide, and unfortunately Johansen can't get into the box soon enough, thus leaving Mitro to fend for himself against 2 center-backs.

I understand pace and tempo to exposed defenders and shape. That is basically a counter-attacking tactic. Do we really want to go to a counter-attacking format? That's what Ranieri had us set up as. Low level shells with our central midfielders going ball-side constantly, thus forcing this narrative that Tom Cairney can't tackle or Seri wasn't aggressive enough. I'd only go for that if we maintained a high level pressure like we do already, however one wrong slip and all the momentum to attack as a full-force mobile unit can unravel everything.

I think we're very much stuck in a spot here where supporters aren't happy with the result, and thus are wanting to pick out the items that they feel are the reason we aren't getting the results. As a coach, I don't see it that way because the stats and the play on the field say otherwise. It's literally not putting the ball in the back of the net. That's so simple, and because of how simple that is, it becomes an invalid reason as to why we are failing to get the results required.

We are a team, a club, that is built on momentum. If momentum is in our favor, we know to hold firm and not let go. Unfortunately, we lose all momentum when we concede first, and a chain reaction of errors has skewed that more than it has our possession and attacking prowess. However, just like any type of discussion, the advantage is the reality of the result, which is why the momentum of these types of threads are valid and not surprising. I definitely think the narrative of useless possession has all the wrong momentum right now, and the power of its suggestion is blinding a lot of supporters into the actual good we have to work on as a base.

[colinwhite]

Still don't understand how people can say we have useless possession, or slow possession, when we are 3rd in most shots total, and 3rd for most average.

It's like everyone still stuck on the Cardiff City match in which Ream and Mawson literally play back and forth, but are not realizing that Cardiff set up in strictly a man marking system, which was incredibly difficult to penetrate, yet still managed to win the shot count at 11 to their 9.

As I've been saying all season, it's our conversion rate. 23 goals is too low. Especially when 12 of those are for one player. Bobby Reid alone, it's not fair that he's a double-digit goal scorer, and we haven't gotten one goal out of him. One could argue it's Parker's fault, but that would be out of context, because we all have seen the chances that Reid has had to get on the scoring sheet.

I think Parker is genuinely not getting the best out of his players' goal scoring capabilities currently. Defensively it's another thing though. We're never really broken down by high possession teams, we're just up against good finishers on counter-attacks. I'd love to see a stat of our goals conceded and what % of them are counter-attacks vs measured passing sequences. I am not sure how often other tactical systems are tested against our defenders in practice. I'd assume there'd be a practice, or two, that prepare for those scenarios - so I'm not necessarily going to question the coaches here.

Overall, Parker is establishing his system quite well. The logic of having useless possession, or boring play, is just another one of those things that happens throughout a community. Power of suggestion, thoughts become things, all that. However, the stats do not lie, the video does not lie. It's a good and effective system. It just needs more finishers to put the ball in the back of the net. 

Great post Matt . Totally agree. If Bobby read had scored 4or 5 goals we could have another 6 or 7 points. Attacks finished also equals fewer times to be hit on the counter.

[colinwhite]

Not blaming Bobby reid by the way. 

[colinwhite]

To claim that we dont play with tempo and intensity is nonsense! We have periods in games when we are slower and others when we play quicker ,but getting a bit fed up with all theses untrue generalisations !!

[FFC1987]

To claim that we dont play with tempo and intensity is nonsense! We have periods in games when we are slower and others when we play quicker ,but getting a bit fed up with all theses untrue generalisations !!

I think you'd agree that some games we really have though and its made worse that Hull, the most recent game totally lacked tempo and intensity.

[Spirit of 2000]

To claim that we dont play with tempo and intensity is nonsense! We have periods in games when we are slower and others when we play quicker ,but getting a bit fed up with all theses untrue generalisations !!

I think you'd agree that some games we really have though and its made worse that Hull, the most recent game totally lacked tempo and intensity.

We dont play with ENOUGH pace and intensity generally and no matter what anyone says opposition managers have sussed us and we lack a plan b / alternative