Scott Parker feels Aleksandar Mitrovic can benefit from his spell out of the Fulham team after a difficult start to the Premier League season.
The Fulham manager has left the Serbian striker out of his side since Mitrovic missed the decisive penalty in his country’s European Championship play-off defeat by Scotland, with the former Newcastle forward making just a single since November’s international break – against his old club at St. James’ Park.
Parker says he has had to draw on his own experiences to manage Mitrovic, who hasn’t scored since grabbing a couple of goals in Fulham’s 4-3 defeat at Leeds back in October.
“I think it’s fair to say that Aleks, at the start of the season, struggled a bit and had a bit of a dip in form. Being the one centre-forward in the football club, a lot of pressure and responsibility lies on Aleks’ shoulders. I played football for a long time, I understand those pressures and stresses. Sometimes coming out of the arena, and getting some air and oxygen, can help.”
“I’m sure it’s not been an easy period. That’s then down to me in terms of managing Aleks and understanding the reasons for that. Of course at the same time, Cavaleiro has done very, very well. The team has done very, very well.”
“At the time, players just live in the moment and see it for what it is. That little bit of air you give them, which maybe at first they don’t quite understand, or quite see, they come out the other side, and all of a sudden play with a little bit more freedom. They forget what was happening, that burden or dip in form that was maybe on their shoulders.”
Parker believes Mitrovic’s spell out of the team could be beneficial during the second half of the season and was impressed by his contribution off the bench in Wednesday’s draw with Brighton.
“I think that’s something that can only help Aleks. Every player has dips in form, every player has moments in their careers and moments in seasons. But like I said, I was really pleased with Aleks against Brighton. I thought he was superb when he came on. He was a real presence, showed his quality, played with a real freedom and energy.”
Somebody please explain to Scott Parker that air is oxygen and vice versa.
To say, now, that that was why Mitro was suddenly not selected is ridiculous.
Parker dropped him because he realised that the awful footballing philosophy that he had forced upon us in the Championship was never going to work in the Premiership and had to be changed quickly. This coincided with Mitrovic’s loss of form and confidence but, ultimately, it was evident that Mitrovic would not suit the new, fast, counter attacking style that we suddenly adopted -after dropping 23 points before the Leicester away game.
I’m not sure it will now -oxygen/air or not.
But, after so much painful suffering watching the alternative, I am hoping that some sort of compromise can be reached and that Mitro starts against West Prom-And justifies his inclusion.
Charles is absolutely right. That explanation is total rubbish. Great to see others seeing through it.
I’d say picking Cav over Mitro supported and reinforced his loss in confidence and form. Parker has had a hand in it. To say he has been helping him is rubbish.
“Cav has done very, very well”. That is simply rubbish.
Let’s get it right. Parker abandoned his belief that we could pass through teams in the Prem. He moved to a back 5 and a counter attacking style when we were getting hammered. That has helped the defence and coincided with all the better players arriving giving us confidence we are on the right track. However, going forward we are still poor because Cav and RLC cant score. Parker picked Cav because of his pace but he is pointless.
The truth is a back 5 with our new defence is working. Cav isnt. Swap him for Mitro and get the wing backs putting the ball in the box. This was obvious about 8 games ago. If you do it now fine. But dont tell me you’ve been helping Mitro out by playing Cav instead. What a load of rubbish. Parker worries me. He is too slow to adapt and see things for what they are. Some of us aren’t as slow to see through Parker’s inability to make timely decisions.
Or, Parker releases that he’s not getting a new striker and he’s trying to install belief into Mitro.
We’ve been through a period of tough games, now we play against the lesser teams, Mitro should have more of an impact.
Either way, he’s being positive about Mitro and Cav, which in my opinion is good management and not throwing them under the bus, like Lampard for example.
Good point Charlie. Parker is very good at supporting his players and promoting the right image of the club. For that he deserves credit.
Let’s hope Mitro starts and scores. If that happens we have a chance of getting out of this. We can debate whether that decision should have been made ages ago but let’s hope Parker eventually makes it today.
Fulham to win and Mitro to score first….everything crossed for this afternoon
I don’t call playing Leicester and West Ham lesser teams far from it.We will struggle to beat WBA not from a footballing view but scoring our build up play does not suit Mitrovic as that mean him being put through to score,thats not his game he ends balls in the box thats why he is effective in the championship. We won’t go down being the worst team we will go down because ofbeing unable to score enough goals,pure and simple
Brighton, West Brom, Leicester and West Ham are ‘lesser’ teams than, Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, who we’ve just played.
I expect Mitro to have a bigger impact in the next 7-8 games then he would have had if he played in the previous 8.
In our last 11 games played we have scored 1 goal with someone that you could even remotely describe as having been ‘put through’. That was Lookman against Man Utd. Just to repeat that….1 goal in 11 games where we have played ANYONE in to score or on a counter…which apparently is our ‘system’. Can we please stop saying Cav is better in that ‘style’ or ‘system’. He has scored a header and a penalty in 19 games. How is that a success?? He hasnt even scored a single goal in the way the team is set up for him to score.
Do we seriously think Mitro would have scored less than 1 goal if he’d played against Brighton twice, a weak Southampton, was provided with the sitter against Chelsea etc etc. In my view the back 7 and keeper have been fantastic. Far better than we could have possibly hoped…but our attacking approach has failed.
I know it is all opinions, but, it is a fact that ANY approach to scoring couldn’t have been worse than relying on Cav and RLC! 1 goal from open play between them in about a combined 38 appearances!!!!!
Come on Mitro we need you now big fella! Lets get Tete, Lookman and Robinson to feed him. Gotta be worth a try.
Dave all of your words are so true!!! What has the awful Cav done? Oh yeah, a PK and a cross that happened to hit him on the head and go in the net. How many goals have we really scored on the counter attack?? You are exactly right, all rubbish! Mitro must play, he will score. Most forget the added element Mitro provides in the defensive box especially on set pieces. Wake up Scotty, insert Mitro and we can earn the points to stay up!!!
Having just read through all the comments, I have to say they are correct. Our different style to last year and the change of the defence has worked for the PL but if you took away Mitros goals last year then there was no one else to score enough goals.
So with the change of system and a dip in Mitros form it is no surprise that we are struggling to score. It’s true that we are not giving him a good supply of crosses but even with DC Reed getting a few sweet must score from more members of the squad if we are to stay up.
Having just read through all the comments, I have to say they are correct. Our different style to last year and the change of the defence has worked for the PL but if you took away Mitros goals last year then there was no one else to score enough goals.
So with the change of system and a dip in Mitros form it is no surprise that we are struggling to score. It’s true that we are not giving him a good supply of crosses but even with DC Reed getting a few goals we must score from more members of the squad if we are to stay up.
Fulham will be in the championship next season if parker stays in charge,if you can’t beat Brighton or west brom who can we beat.