Hands up.

[simplyfulham]

Parker started coaching in 2017.

I challenge anybody to find a better manager who started their career in or after 2017. Not saying that Parker is the best manager out there, I'm just saying he's curve has been pretty extreme given his limited exposure in the job.

Worth sticking with him imo.

But isn't that precisely the point?  I've long said Parker shouldn't be the man for us, that having a manager learning on the job was not a good choice.  Even when the playoff places were not confirmed I suggested he shouldn't be manager this season, whether or not we were promoted.  Understandably, I received flak - it's all opinion, not science.   And I endorse what Bobby01 says  "We play in Parker's image as a player, keep the ball at all costs, even if you go nowhere."   It's usually all so flipping dreary.

Yeah I mean listen, if you want to make the case that Fulham should be in the hands of a manager with more experience in the game (+ other criteria too) then I think that's a fair cop.

It's become a bit of a trend of late to give it to a younger manager who may have new ideas and fresh enthusiasm for the role. It's unclear if there's anything to back up that approach or if it's one of football's fads.

I don't think the assessment of playing in Parker's image is true. We started out like that for sure and ultimately he leans to a possession style but he's shown that he's very pragmatic and has adapted Fulham's style 4 or 5 times since he was the perm boss.

He's evolved and he's rolled with the punches at times and he's made a fair few mistakes along the way (you can point to the subs yesterday as one of the mistakes) but for the most part he learns and adapts after those mistakes. You can't fault him for his improvement as a coach/manager even if there are other problems you can lay at his door.

[Twig]

Watching us under Parker last season was awful most weeks.  Best squad in the championship and underperformed for most of the season.  Huge credit for the play off final performance, but I'd hate to watch another season of backward and sideways passing and slow counter attacking football.

Sorry but I just do not see that we had the best squad in the Champ last year. If they were so damned good how come so few have come even remotely close to Premier level? Scott got a rather average squad promoted last season. I agree it sometimes wasn't very attractive but it succeeded.
That said, I agree that his style has been too conservative.  He had to make us defensively sound and seemed to have done that. He should have then looked to set us up to create more and better opportunities for our front men. Sadly he seems to have stagnated.

[Riversider]

Watching us under Parker last season was awful most weeks.  Best squad in the championship and underperformed for most of the season.  Huge credit for the play off final performance, but I'd hate to watch another season of backward and sideways passing and slow counter attacking football.

Sorry but I just do not see that we had the best squad in the Champ last year. If they were so damned good how come so few have come even remotely close to Premier level? Scott got a rather average squad promoted last season. I agree it sometimes wasn't very attractive but it succeeded.
That said, I agree that his style has been too conservative.  He had to make us defensively sound and seemed to have done that. He should have then looked to set us up to create more and better opportunities for our front men. Sadly he seems to have stagnated.

Best doesn't necessarily mean good, it means best when compared to our opponents,  I.e the likes of Blackburn,  Preston,  Reading, QPR etc

[shepperton white]

The Parker out brigade may get their  way, but I'll bet he wont be out of a job for more than a few weeks.  Even the likes of West Ham and Spurs fans have all said they would like have him some time in the future

[Facts Not Fiction]

Fair enough, Parker in for me. I just want some stability.

The stability of being a yoyo club? Yeah he got us up last season. But only just. This season he not learnt. He's not improved. We either score and our defence collapses or we don't concede but out attack collapses. He doesn't have a plan B

You seriously don't think he's improved?

[FFC In Oz]

The Parker out brigade may get their  way, but I'll bet he wont be out of a job for more than a few weeks.  Even the likes of West Ham and Spurs fans have all said they would like have him some time in the future

I'll bet he wouldn't last more than 6 months at either of those clubs if he walked in to one of those jobs tomorrow.

[YankeeJim]

Just a short time ago we beat Liverpool on their patch and Parker was a god. We needed be so fickle.

[Arthur]

The guys a busted flush. He has glimpses of a good manager but as always, consistency is his issue.

In which ways has Parker been inconsistent?

Winning games would be a pretty easy point to make.

Easy, yes, but not a good point. Seeing as we were relegation favourites from the moment the final whistle blew at Wembley last August, the fact we haven't been winning consistently throughout the season has come as no surprise.

Yeh, no one expects a manager to keep us in the league and have a better win percentage than 16%. Parker is consistent in that respect. Consistently poor. Easy point made. Try again to refute without reverting to poor excuses for a failing manager.

Okay, so you expected Parker to keep us up. And if he doesn't, in your eyes, this proves him to be a poor manager. You're perfectly entitled to see it this way, of course.

I did not expect the same. Parker keeping us up was a possibility, for sure, but the prospect of the season unfolding with relegation being, for us, 'in the rear view mirror', so to speak, never seemed likely. As a consequence of my expectations, how Parker rates as a manager was not going to be determined solely by our league placing.

When you claimed 'consistency is his (Parker's) issue', it was not unreasonable to think you were referring to matters such as his team selection and tactics. This was why I asked. Few, I suspect, would have thought you simply meant 'results have not been good enough to keep us out of the relegation places'. Had I realised this, I wouldn't have replied.

Rightly or wrongly, I sense you are venting some of your annoyance towards Parker onto me. I shall, therefore, leave my contribution at this.

[MickTheBeard]

You must remember he wanted anonymous from spurs who struggled when he 1st came to Fulham got better then had an op.Got him a wage rise??? and then had another minor op end of season and has spent getting fit and up to speed,but does not look premier quality,he's been at Fulham nearly 2years.He then has mentioned Lookman at the end of the season he would like to do a deal.He started off allright but has deteriorated as the season progressed would you pay £16mil for him,Everton and his parent club have and want to get rid,something is missing in his game or Parker plays him wrong I think their is better out their.And the best statement Parker has made is we haven't seen the best of Loftus-Cheek yet.Yes Scott we haven't,I believe he listens to much of what other people say about him including some Fulham fans,for a number10 his attacking flair is poor.

[FFC1987]

The guys a busted flush. He has glimpses of a good manager but as always, consistency is his issue.

In which ways has Parker been inconsistent?

Winning games would be a pretty easy point to make.

Easy, yes, but not a good point. Seeing as we were relegation favourites from the moment the final whistle blew at Wembley last August, the fact we haven't been winning consistently throughout the season has come as no surprise.

Yeh, no one expects a manager to keep us in the league and have a better win percentage than 16%. Parker is consistent in that respect. Consistently poor. Easy point made. Try again to refute without reverting to poor excuses for a failing manager.

Okay, so you expected Parker to keep us up. And if he doesn't, in your eyes, this proves him to be a poor manager. You're perfectly entitled to see it this way, of course.

I did not expect the same. Parker keeping us up was a possibility, for sure, but the prospect of the season unfolding with relegation being, for us, 'in the rear view mirror', so to speak, never seemed likely. As a consequence of my expectations, how Parker rates as a manager was not going to be determined solely by our league placing.

When you claimed 'consistency is his (Parker's) issue', it was not unreasonable to think you were referring to matters such as his team selection and tactics. This was why I asked. Few, I suspect, would have thought you simply meant 'results have not been good enough to keep us out of the relegation places'. Had I realised this, I wouldn't have replied.

Rightly or wrongly, I sense you are venting some of your annoyance towards Parker onto me. I shall, therefore, leave my contribution at this.

A lot of what you said is correct, particularly the venting part. Apologies. I'm a mixture of part annoyed, part angry, part disappointed and finally just part numb of it now.

In relation to consistency, on a more critical level, I find Parker a mixed bag. Shows glimpses of a good manager, astute tactics, positive timings to impact games positively and getting more from players that sometimes I don't expect. But then again, I look at his tenure now and just see a lot of what I've just said with numerous conflictions to that. How players have actually progressed under his tenure? How many have either gone backwards or just about keep on par? I'd argue we've seen in his time, more players go backward. In relation to pressure. This team bar maybe the playoffs, have shown, time and time again, any whiff of opportunity, be it pushing for automatics, or climbing out of the relegation spots, we just completely capitulate. Seeing as this squad has changed, I feel Parker has to absorb some or all of that responsibility. Something isn't right there. If we take it in isolation ie pressure, how many times have we thrown away points after being in opportunistic positions? How fortunate have we been at times to play teams without key players yet still fall short? How many times have we missed key chances to close games or made stupid mistakes to allow struggling teams back into games? Way too many. Parkers tactics might be consistent, but for the most part, 5/31, the results are too. We've seen the squad are capable. Why isn't it consistently?

As for start of the season, I wrote us off prior. Wasn't overwhelmed by summer signings, wasn't sure how Parker would settle into Prem and as we all know, its a difficult task to keep a playoff side up. That said, Parker showed a string of games, we were a side worthy of many concluding we were definitely staying up. Saying we could beat anyone. Having the second best defensive record in the league behind City for a spell. All well and good, but during that time, we were still in bottom 3, not really scoring goals BUT the defence playing well over expectations/longevity levels so inevitably, unless we scored a few more goals, games were going to be lost. Parker however, has struggled to influence tactics, be it starting wise, or changing wise and we find ourselves behind a Steve Bruce Newcastle side who look bl**dy dreadful. Yet, we're still behind them by 3 points with them having a game in hand.

I've had a bit of a rant here, but I'm venting again (more constructively this time however) but say what you want for Parker, if we go down, with a less than 20% win ratio, I personally see his position as untenable. That's a shocking record for any manager. It's currently at 16% which I think it'll roughly stay at. What does that mean. Well, Steve Bruce, currently has the worst ratio at what was 28% (probably lower now) but that was over 300 games. And that's regarded as laughing stock material. Yet, here we are, at times, and not necessarily you, polishing the turd that is Parker, because hes a stand up chap who wears a dreadful jacket and got us a few nice wins this season. I could understand the appreciation if we played nice football, like say Potter and Brighton, but he doesn't even have that. So what does he have? Amazing skills as a manager for an excuse that people sued last year. Squad ain't up to it. TK to blame. Cairney injured (last year Mitro). It feels very same old same old to me with the air of inevitability that he'll either not get what he wants in summer and walk, or be fired for the dross record discussed above.

Hope I'm wrong, we stay up, Bruce goes down and Newcastle finally find a new owner/manager to pull them up again and all the whole Parker has a lovely long career progressing Fulham to a stable midtable team before being poached by first England, then maybe Spurs. We finally get to see the likes of Andersen sign upon staying up and when stadiums open, we get to grab a beer, talk about how silly it was we could ever have sacked him and sit in the stands watching some lovely free flowing attacking football. Pipe dreams are nice.

[The Rational Fan]

I totally understand those that didn't want Parker to be head coach two seasons only because he lacked experience etc, and I understand those that haven't see enough to change their minds about Parker as his in experience has shown from time to time. 

What I don't understand is those fans that wanted Scott Parker as head coach and have now changed their mind due to his inexperience showing? Scott Parker has exceeded my low expectations for him and he is improving the team, what more should anyone expect?

[keithh]

I've been a Fulham fan since birth & sincerely hope that at season's end my son will tell me that I should have kept faith & not be a doom monger.

[Black and White Blood]

I've said it before
Get off Parker's back
I don't think anyone could have done better with the hand he's been dealt
and he can't legislate for individual errors

[FFC1987]

I've said it before
Get off Parker's back
I don't think anyone could have done better with the hand he's been dealt
and he can't legislate for individual errors