Parker’s after speech on the offal

[MickTheBeard]

Agree with everything Parker said about the game except one topic he avoids,as though it does not exist.Last year we more or less went up with mitros goals and struggled.This year our forward went awol.You are a successful side if all the team take a share of the goals,unfortunately our midfield and defence don't agree.You look for a long shot from midfield a free kick a one two or even a defensive header from a corner or free kick.The saying is it works don't change it,well when the loanes leave at the end of the season change the system or change some players or with out a one man band upfront which doesn't work long term we will struggle next season especially what the financial implications tonys lumbered us with.                                                     Remember Scott your cv could at the end of the season would read relegated with Fulham twice admittedly 1 you inherited .And when we play Newcastle at the end of the season,You said after the 0-4 loss,I never saw it coming,well if we don't find our shooting boots we might see it again.

[General]

Honestly its been a criticism of mine for a while but doesn't seem to have been picked up on much. Yes we've dominated teams, particularly since January, yes our defence is one of the best in the league - great.. but we have made no progress on our attacking play and goal threat AT ALL this season and whilst I'd put some of that down to personnel which is heavily a recruitment part, I also feel a fair share of blame has to be laid squarely at parkers feet. Whilst parker does show promise and has learnt and has got us into a defensively sound and competitive shape it is absolutely redundant if you can't put the ball in the back of the net and if we are all being truthful it's an area he has severely lacked in his teams and subsequently I have to blame his lack of coaching goals and shooting into the team.. they must practice it but something isn't dropping and I think that has to be put down in large part just as equally to Parker.

Players don't tend to make runs off the ball as much as they should, rarely do you get good crosses into the final third, areas tend to be congested, few players seem genuinely up for taking the shot on and even the fundamentals of getting shots on target are far and few between.

Some are speculative and some just genuinely lack and meaningful quality from the player... anguissa takes the most amount of speculative shots, whilst cavaleiros decision making in the final third is genuinely atrocious.  On top of that antonee Robinson whilst I'm a big fan of his seems to be horrendous at playing a final ball in the attacking third.

These things should've improved tenfold by now.

On top of which for a long time he simply seemed to choose to leave mitro out of the starting lineup even when we had a complete inability to score goals up front (something you could argue we still have), and mitro is the only player I've seen this season aside from perhaps BDR who has the ability to bring our attack together and make it effective.

Lookman, BDR, Mitro and Maja should be our top four with mitro playing the RLC role.. but likelihood is that won't happen as parker can be very closed minded with these things.

Its like a broken record though. I've said this time and again this season, seen the same problems happen, the same issues persist and the same decisions get taken. It's the most frustrating thing in the world  as I see a squad that has the raw potential to go on and do well in the premiership if we stay up but we're simply in the process of getting relegated because we're not clinical enough, we're not aggressive enough and so we're reliant on things falling our way or getting the rub of the green which is somewhat fatalistic.

I personally would love us to stay up but right now have us down to be relegated because simply we're making the same mistakes time and time again and are failing to capitalise on any of our strengths.

Most people would admit that you go into games realistically expecting either a draw or loss and form would dictate you'd be objectively right to think that way too. Every now and then we get a win.. but this is a results business and we're simply not getting the results.

I know parker is a darling and is a solid manager it seems but we keep waiting for the penny to drop and throughout his time as a manager of our first relegation season, last championship season and this season in particular we have always failed to get the most out of our teams offensively. Even when we had cavaleiro, BDR, mitro and knockaert  all players who'd be players of the season or prolific for their teams.. we still struggled to score consistently. His win % at this level in particular is horrendous.

I'd say prove me wrong but we're simply not good enough up front and in actually getting the results that matter and it's now got to the point where it's been proven over a large chunk of the season.

[blingo]

Parker said it himself "I dont know if we will have enough time this season to get it right". I might be missing something here but fat frank got sacked and their new manager has come in and gone on an unbeaten run with the same players. Someone convince me that good managers can't make silk purses out of sows ears.

[WindyCity]

Disagree a bit with TO.  Yes Mitrovic did score goals for us but I didn't think we went up solely on his contributions.  You may recall, he did not play much (injury) toward the end of the season during the push for promotion.  And the team looked good and won games and scored enough goals/points to qualify for playoffs and win promotion, without Mitrovic. 

The elephant in the room that SP just can't acknowledge is lack of offense.  FFC is not clinical enough in the final third, and that has been the case all season long. 

[FulhamStu]

The first thing any successful team need to sort out is the defence.  Tigana did this in a similar fashion to Slavs approach which was not to give the opposition the ball, this worked until get got in the Prem and then we were somewhat found out.  Tigana had such good players however were were able to adapt but Slavs team were just not good enough.  What Parker has done is make the team defensively strong, defending from the front, keeping shape and being well organised.

What we lack as said above is a serious goal threat, crossing the ball to Mitro is just not going to work against better players, occasionally it will yield a goal or two but not often enough.  What we seriously lack are runners going beyond the striker, a player like Dempsey.   Because we are so organised, we don't allow someone the freedom to do this.  Also the 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 systems requires more movement going forward but again because the players are focussed on defensive duties they are reluctant to get forward enough.  We don't have anyone decent on dead balls so we also don't score hardly any set piece goals either directly or via a central defender getting on a corner.

Basically we have a great team ethic and have got the basics right.  We now need that X factor player in midfield, a sort of Cairney plus plus and a runner who can get behind defences and take a risk. 

[FFC In Oz]

Honestly its been a criticism of mine for a while but doesn't seem to have been picked up on much. Yes we've dominated teams, particularly since January, yes our defence is one of the best in the league - great.. but we have made no progress on our attacking play and goal threat AT ALL this season and whilst I'd put some of that down to personnel which is heavily a recruitment part, I also feel a fair share of blame has to be laid squarely at parkers feet. Whilst parker does show promise and has learnt and has got us into a defensively sound and competitive shape it is absolutely redundant if you can't put the ball in the back of the net and if we are all being truthful it's an area he has severely lacked in his teams and subsequently I have to blame his lack of coaching goals and shooting into the team.. they must practice it but something isn't dropping and I think that has to be put down in large part just as equally to Parker.

Players don't tend to make runs off the ball as much as they should, rarely do you get good crosses into the final third, areas tend to be congested, few players seem genuinely up for taking the shot on and even the fundamentals of getting shots on target are far and few between.

Some are speculative and some just genuinely lack and meaningful quality from the player... anguissa takes the most amount of speculative shots, whilst cavaleiros decision making in the final third is genuinely atrocious.  On top of that antonee Robinson whilst I'm a big fan of his seems to be horrendous at playing a final ball in the attacking third.

These things should've improved tenfold by now.

On top of which for a long time he simply seemed to choose to leave mitro out of the starting lineup even when we had a complete inability to score goals up front (something you could argue we still have), and mitro is the only player I've seen this season aside from perhaps BDR who has the ability to bring our attack together and make it effective.

Lookman, BDR, Mitro and Maja should be our top four with mitro playing the RLC role.. but likelihood is that won't happen as parker can be very closed minded with these things.

Its like a broken record though. I've said this time and again this season, seen the same problems happen, the same issues persist and the same decisions get taken. It's the most frustrating thing in the world  as I see a squad that has the raw potential to go on and do well in the premiership if we stay up but we're simply in the process of getting relegated because we're not clinical enough, we're not aggressive enough and so we're reliant on things falling our way or getting the rub of the green which is somewhat fatalistic.

I personally would love us to stay up but right now have us down to be relegated because simply we're making the same mistakes time and time again and are failing to capitalise on any of our strengths.

Most people would admit that you go into games realistically expecting either a draw or loss and form would dictate you'd be objectively right to think that way too. Every now and then we get a win.. but this is a results business and we're simply not getting the results.

I know parker is a darling and is a solid manager it seems but we keep waiting for the penny to drop and throughout his time as a manager of our first relegation season, last championship season and this season in particular we have always failed to get the most out of our teams offensively. Even when we had cavaleiro, BDR, mitro and knockaert  all players who'd be players of the season or prolific for their teams.. we still struggled to score consistently. His win % at this level in particular is horrendous.

I'd say prove me wrong but we're simply not good enough up front and in actually getting the results that matter and it's now got to the point where it's been proven over a large chunk of the season.

+1

People keep mentioning that we are "unlucky".  Which is fine if it happens in one game, or even twice, maybe even three games.

But the story is far too repetitive to be a matter of luck, and is due to a number of factors which you point out.

I think our off the ball running in the final third is poor, nobody seems to be making dangerous positions, and if they are, they are heavily outnumbered.

Other teams seem to be more adept at playing a decisive ball in the final third to our forward's advantage.

There were about 4-5 times against Spurs when we tried to play someone in behind the Spurs defence.  On each occasion the ball was overhit and harmlessly trickled out for a goal kick.

[filham]

I am all for Parker and think he hasdone well with the squad in the short time they have been together, good teams take time to gel.
No doubt our bug problem is scoring goals and shooting.
A lovely opportunity fell to Lemina last night in an ideal position for him to score only for him to blast well over the bar.
Not sure what Parker could have done in training to have turned that opportunity into a goal. Similarly with that run of penalty misses early in the season.

[Southcoastffc]

I am all for Parker and think he hasdone well with the squad in the short time they have been together, good teams take time to gel.
No doubt our bug problem is scoring goals and shooting.
A lovely opportunity fell to Lemina last night in an ideal position for him to score only for him to blast well over the bar.
Not sure what Parker could have done in training to have turned that opportunity into a goal. Similarly with that run of penalty misses early in the season.

At what stage does a coach need to remind a professional what 6 and 7 year olds are taught? Keep your knee over the ball, don't lean back.