It’s time to grab your parka, Parker

It’s very rare that I take to blogging, my forte is running Forums, however, after that pathetic performance against Barnsley today, I thought I’d give it go.

When Parker was appointed full time coach, I was slightly sceptical, and after our car-crash of a season in the Premier League, I honestly thought we’d go for a bit more experience.

Don’t get me wrong, experience doesn’t always gain you success, especially in football, but, when the owners stated that promotion was the target this season, I was once again very sceptical.

I’ve nothing personal against Parker, I’m sure he will make a good coach someday, but, with such high expectations form the owners, was it really a good idea to place this responsibility in his hands?

If Fulham were planning on spending a couple of season in the Championship, and harbouring Parker whilst he learnt his trade, then fair enough, but that isn’t the case.

I can see what the owners have tried to do, they’ve tried to build a strong team around Parker, by keeping the likes of Mitrovic, Cairney, and adding the like Cavalerio, Knockhaert, Reid etc, in the hope that quality would see us though, but, it’s not panning out that way.

Unfortunately, we all know, that you can buy a Ferrari, but if you can’t drive it properly, then you’re not going to get the best out of it, and that is the case this season.

I look at our current squad, and I see an abundance talent there, enough to be challenging for the top two spots, and blowing some teams away whilst we do it.

Frustratingly, and even though we do go on a run of unbeaten games, the team always looks disjointed, and for the quality we have up front, we always lack a cutting edge.

If it wasn’t for Mitrovic and his 20 goals so far, I’d hate to think where we’d actually be in the league, certainly not where we are today.

For me, Parker doesn’t get the best out the squad he has, we always look disjointed, players seem to play out of their preferred positions, and we play a system where Mitrovic is constantly isolated.

On top of this, we don’t press teams enough, we play the short pass all the time, knocking it around the back, and inviting pressure on to us, which leads to mistakes.

When we do attack, the process seems so slow, we don’t utilise the channels very well, opting for inverted wingers, and by the time we do attack, other teams have nullified us.

Parkers ability to also change games also frustrates me, his subs seem odd, and we have an inability to use a plan B if teams come and work us out early.

All in all, this seems a carbon copy of what WBA went through with Darren Moore, and, although we sit third in the Championship, I feel it’s a very false position, and if we are not careful with our up and coming run of games, we could find ourselves slipping out of the playoff positions.

I was never a fan of Parker when he was appointed, nor do I have any emotional attachment to him as a player, or a coach, but I do find his style of football boring, drab, slow, uncreative, and something that doesn’t excite me like it did with Jokanovic.

The Millwall and Barnsley games were a reflection of this, with Fulham not even testing the Millwall goalkeeper after Mitrovic’s 3rd minute goal, and Barnsley today, bottom of the Championship, totally outplaying us at home.

Will the owners dare sack Parker whilst we’re sitting in 3rd position? Highly unlikely, however, I don’t see Parker getting us promoted automatically, or through the playoffs, so I’d take a gamble on someone else, in the hope they can improve things over the final stretch of 13 games.

With the likes of Derby, Forest, Leeds, WBA, Brentford all to come, we could do with all the experience we can get.

Verdict: It’s time for Parker to grab his parka.

14 Replies to “It’s time to grab your parka, Parker”

  1. Totally agree. Scott is not a leader. TC is not a leader. We have drab uninspiring leadership. Combine that with slow, predictable, boring football. The back 4 do not play for Barcelona. They play in the Championship. The suicidal passing around is an accident about to happen. We suck the momentum out of the crowd and the play by being so slow. This result has been coming. If Scott couldn’t see it he is an idiot. Champions League tactics with Championship quality back 4. Idiot. PS Has Onomah got photos of Scott or something?

  2. And to think Hodgeson who did know how to get the best out of even the most ordinary player got Fulham to a European cup final with a less talented squad.

    1. 100% correct. I could have written this blog as it echoes my thoughts almost to the word. At last somebody else with objectivity, rationale and common sense

  3. I rarely like to comment on fulham managers, however I too feel it is looking likely that if fulham are going to go up this year a change is needed, I an a fan of Scott parker but fail to see where this current team will achieve, with our dependence on attacking full backs and wingers we seem to neglect the creativity we have on offer in midfield and leave glaring space open when possession is lost higher up the park, if we were playing quick tempo football this may be harder to exploit but with our paucity to break into a jog, the likes of hull, brentford and Bristol city to name just a few have exposed our so obvious weakness, sadly we need to bring in proven managerial strength,, perhaps Houghton, or the ageing Allardyce, god forbid maybe even that man who achieved it with Cardiff but definitely someone who knows how to beat the championship.

  4. I’ve been a Fulham supporter all my 50 years and a season ticket holder for the last 25 , if this is what blogging is then please keep it up .
    Great post which sums up what myself ,mum,son and friends which all sit around us in the Hammersmith end have all been saying from the first month of the season .

  5. Totally agree. Shocking performance at home to Barnsley, one of the worst I’ve seen for a long time ( although I wasn’t at the Hull game!). One point from Millwall and Barnsley, did not see that coming. Parker is obviously an honest football man, no doubt a hard working guy as he was as a player but everything you said is true and he needs to go now……but he won’t

  6. Ive only enjoyed watching us for half an hour against Huddersfield recently. The style of football is ponderously slow.
    Ream, k Mac are slow and past it. The hype around Steven Sess is ridiculous. He’s a league 1/2 player.
    Parkers been unlucky with the Kongolo injury .He would have played alongside Hector. The championship is a very poor standard and was there for the taking.
    The khans will have to rethink their strategy over the manager and player personnel over the summer. At leasdt. their heart is in the right place.

  7. Couldn’t disagree more.
    Typical of comments which all vary with every couple of games. Prior to the debacle yesterday we are 6 unbeaten and we’re still 3rd in the table.
    Parker didn’t make Rodak have the worst game a Fulham keeper has had in many years; Parker didn’t tell the players to miscontrol the ball all afternoon.
    The players were responsible for yesterday.

    We have the same points as our promotion season (albeit we are unlikely to have only 1 more defeat to the end of the season).

    If the new person comes in and loses 3 do we sack him?

  8. Any neutral by-stander watching today’s game at Craven Cottage would have thought Barnsley were the team competing for promotion and Fulham were rock bottom looking like relegation fodder.
    With the firepower up front for Fulham, fielding Mitrovic, Knockaert and Cavaleiro, home supporters must have been rubbing their hands together before kick-off wondering whether the Whites would surpass their highest score of the season when they beat Millwall 4-0 at the Cottage.
    Not on your nelly! Playing against a side that had shipped 58 goals to date (equal second worse in the Championship), Fulham were inept from the start. From the 24th minute when keeper Rodak fouled Brown, and former Fulham striker Woodrow slotted home the penalty, it looked like deja-vu. Could it be another defeat at the hands of Barnsley, when Fulham lost their opening game of the season 1-0 at Oakwell?
    Worse was to come when the away side doubled their lead in the 51st minute when Brown scored, assisted by Woodrow. Scott Parker threw on two more strikers in Reid and Kamara, yet fielding five strikers could not find the net once.
    The former Fulham striker Cauley Woodrow had the last laugh when he put away his second and Barnsley’s third to completely humiliate the third placed team, seeking automatic promotion. This must account for Fulham’s worst display of the season. A 3-0 home defeat by the Championship’s bottom team.
    The only chance Fulham have in gaining promotion this season would be to bring back Jokanovic. This team lacks confidence so badly, which can only be instilled by the manager. Fulham should have gone out all attack today and go for goals against goals. With the strikers, we possess it is unbelievable that we failed to find the net and allow the opposition in three times.

    THIS DISPLAY WAS NO MORE THAN A DISGRACE? PARKER AND HIS TEAM SHOULD BE TOTALLY ASHAMED.

  9. We are 3rd in the table not because of Scotty but despite him, he’s been given more tools to use than screwfix and as described sodding around at the back, pedantic moving forward, failure to utilise the best front line in the league ( and that’s the opinion of all our opponents), my/our only hope is that the Barnsley result shakes him to the core and he wakes from his lethargy and goes hung ho which we would be most suited too. Truth is if his current methodology were to somehow get us up, we would come down again quicker than a burning Messerschmitt.

  10. Good assessment..personally I want to see our young players play..like every other championship side seems to do..I guarantee Matt O’Riley would get in any championship team yet he plays twice for us this season is better than any other outfield player when he does..and this oachn favours dull slow players like Onomah who has given us possibly 2 good games..yet always plays..sack him get someone in who develops players and keeps our best youth players..And btw Sessegnon isnt good enough yet…

  11. Spot on mate nice to know we are not alone there are sensible supporters out there and not we are still 3rd brigade coyw

  12. For anyone interested, I’d like to agree with almost all that’s been said here. Most specifically, TC quite clearly is not captain material. He never engages with other players on the pitch, never berating or encouraging, and he wanders aimlessly around before kick off at the start of a game. He is a terrific player and we’re very lucky to have him but he is not a natural motivator. The fact that this is not obvious to Scott Parker et al at Fulham is extremely worrying. Though not always first team picks, and not such gifted players, either McDonald or Johansen would be far better in the role – and Hector looks to me like a likely future candidate. As a general comment on our tactics and how easy it actually can be to beat us (which luckily many other Championship sides don’t quite understand) I commend the brilliantly succinct comments made by Barnsley’s Gerhard Struber on Sports Report after yesterday’s game – I urge you to take a listen but please don’t pass them on to other head coaches!
    What also saddens me about Fulham at present is a general impression of slothfulness about the whole team. Ambling away from our goal kicks with nobody looking back towards Rodak, very little jostling for positions at throw-ins, reticence from tackling and a general lack of confidence in going forward or taking opportunistic shots at goal. My somewhat fanciful pet theory about the cause of this overall lack of energy and intensity is that it is somehow being sucked out of the players by the adjacent slow and lugubrious flow of Old Father Thames. The fact that it is particularly apparent right now could be because the barrier of the Riverside Stand has been removed so the deadening influence of the river is at its peak.
    So roll on the construction of our bright new stand . . . !

  13. Brought in crap players decadova reed,Ivan, hopeless it’s only full backs that give mitro crosses those other so called wingers including knokaert are one trick ponies easy to defend against cut inside and whack it 10 yards over bar 9 times out of 10 yes they score a couple of worldies but no intense creativity. 1 shot against millwall and Barnsley on target.

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