I have set absolutely no target for Parker this season but I note that, before the season started, the Khans and he agreed automatic promotion was the target. I have not argued for Parker to be given anything less than the whole season and I have absolutely no idea where he and his team will finish, but I do look for an upward trajectory in the things that matter in football that are much more subtle, even if less impressive, than sitting in third place, than position in table. If we were third from bottom right now, with a midfield playing like a Jokanovic promotion chasing side and climbing up the table, then I’d be more optimistic about Parker’s longevity than I am as it stands.
Good managers and coaches can perform with average players and can get them to gel and exceed the sum of their parts. Poor managers and coaches can reduce good players to mediocrity and fall well below the sum of their parts. Parker was a midfielder as a player and yet his midfield has varied between very poor and very good not just game to game but within a game. That lack of consistency impacts on everyone else too, defence and attack and outcomes. IMO consistency has been far too absent from our performances, as has been clarity of roles for the midfielders used, for anyone to believe Parker has an automatic right to continue his role as manager.
It seems ages ago I said that regardless of whether Parker achieves promotion or not his position should come under scrutiny for the new season, just as I intimated that was what the Khans should have done with Jokanovic after Wembley. Post season the owners evaluate what coaches and players did, who is still here, who is gone, who the manager would like have on their side and the budget required. That is team work behind the scenes which also needs a midfield playing its part to specified roles. I think FFC forgot about the need for teamwork across the board when TK became DOF with CK as his sidekick. We need to get that back and fast and not be so quick to draw our conclusions about the staff at the Club. Football is a team sport and not a game of who you like and who you don’t.
