Scott Parker will leave Fulham within the next 48 hours – paying the way for him to take over as manager of Bournemouth, according to a Sky Sports report this morning.
Parker’s protracted departure from Craven Cottage has been the subject of extensive negotiations between the 40 year-old and the Fulham hierarchy. His relationship with the club’s ownership deteriorated over the course of last season, when Fulham were relegated from the Premier League, and that has prompted Bournemouth, who previously considered him as the leading candidate to replace Eddie Howe, to revive their interest in taking him to the south coast.
The former Fulham captain, who guided Fulham to promotion via the Championship play-offs in 2020, will succeed Jonathan Woodgate, whose contract as the Cherries’ caretaker manager expires at the end of this month.
Stuart Gray is expected to take charge of Fulham’s pre-season preparations from tomorrow, with under 23 coaches Colin Omogbehin and Mark Pembridge assisting him, as the club looks to recruit Parker’s permanent successor.
I wish Scot well I don’t think he was to blame for our relegation that was down to Tony Khan and the lack of money in the transfer window, I hope we hurry up and get a new manager in so he can see where we need strengthening and get it done before the new season starts.
Good riddance! I never rated him as a player, as a coach he was inept. I’d rather watch paint dry than see Fulham playing under Parker anymore. There are some good players at this club, and Parker is ultimately responsible for failing to inspire them with his negative team selections and tactics. He was always a bad fit!
Some people praised him for his attractive football – rubbish!
All teams can play attractive football in the first two thirds of the pitch – forwards , sideways and backwards – it doesn’t achieve anything!
Once again we find ourselves ill prepared for the next season. I expect some long drawn out search for a new manager who when he signs on the dotted line the day before Middlesboro game will have a bunch of players that weren’t necessarily his choice. It had better not be Pereira, he hasn’t exactly set the world alight in the Chinese super league, if we wanted a ‘Joke alike’ we should have got the real one back. Tony Khan out please
John B, you are, of course, welcome to your opinion but how can you say Parker wasn’t to blame for our relegation?
As a Championship manager, he insisted on us playing his preferred “Parkerball” system and, more by luck than anything else, we scraped to promotion. As a Premiership manager, he had us start the season playing the same possession based sideways and backwards football with a slow build up and zero attacking intent and it proved to be suicidal.
The guy persisted in selecting Ivan Cavaleiro as a lone “striker” despite his consistent ineptness. When we were crying out for goals, Parker chose to make a stance against our one proven finisher, Mitrovic- and, for that alone, his man management skills have to be questioned. He championed Loftus Cheek for most of the season despite the guy’s total lack of real commitment.
Despite him constantly declaring that he believed in giving youth a chance, and the general acclamation of our youth set up, I challenge anybody to name just 2 players who were nurtured under Parker’s management reign and given extended runs. And yes, I give you a head start by including Carvalho who was introduced far too late in the season to have any real impact.
Ultimately, we managed to put ourselves within reach of safety only for the team to totally collapse-collecting just 2 points from the final 30 -yet he kept telling us that he was confident that we would survive.
Sure, we all know that Tony Khan’s input is less than satisfactory but, ultimately, it’s the manager that picks the team and Parker’s team selections most definitely did not contribute anything positive and resulted in us being relegated yet again.
Just 5 wins from 38 games, just 27 goals in the entire season-(putting that in real perspective, it means that we actually scored an average of three quarters off a goal for every game played) the stats are so bad that I am now wondering why Parker lasted as long as he did.
We have been constantly informed that he was rated highly by all and sundry, going to be the next Spurs manager (they are now looking at candidate number seven but not interested in Parker), was going to be the new England Under 21 manager etc etc
People like Barry Fry at Peterborough (how the hell is he so knowledgeable all of a sudden on all things Parker?) keep telling us that Parker was let down by the lack of support in the transfer market and there is some truth to that, I’ll admit.
But, for me, Parker started to believe in his own hype and, upon reflection, will probably admit that he made a number of crucial errors and I believe that, in time, he will look back and regret losing this particular managerial position. I am sure that he will find employment with a number of clubs but, like Garry Monk, once rated as one of the brightest young managers in the game but, ultimately, exposed as not actually being that good and who has, subsequently, bounced from club to club and never lasted very long at any of them, I see this as Scott Parker’s future, too.
Let him prove me wrong!
I’m really sure where I stand on Parker at this point. He couldn’t be blamed for the first relegation and I felt that he did a very good job – in his first full season of management – to get us back up at the first time of asking. A lot of his selections and tactical decisions last season left plenty to be desired but I feel like blaming the manager when the club is being run as it is shooting at the wrong target somewhat.
Look at the situation Fulham are in now. The players come back to training tomorrow – likely as Dan’s article suggests – under the stewardship of Stuart Gray. There’s an absent American ownership, a director of football who can’t be in the country because of the Covid restrictions (and you have to question how much value he adds at this point), no director of scouting, no permanent manager and question marks about the futures of a number of senior players.
I have to conclude that the most promising names on an ideal managerial shortlist would give the job at Craven Cottage a swerve right now. They must be able to deduce why Jokanovic and Parker became so disenchanted with life at the club. I have no preference at the moment with regards to a new manager but the stability the club needs seems a long way off under the current set up.
Personally, delighted to see Parker leave.
But who do we want in?
I would vote for Eddie Howe.
For me, ultimately Charles Corkery has summarised things fairly well and ultimately the players the club had at its disposal throughout the last season should have been good enough to finish 17th at least (which, frankly should be a realistic aim!). Parker has shown flashes of passion and drive to succeed (see his interview immediately after winning the playoff final as an example) but at the end of the day a very talented pool of players didn’t perform for him. I also don’t necessarily think you can completely blame Tony K as (aside from the gaping hole of missing a striker obvs), the recruitment was, on paper, actually pretty good at the end of the summer window before the season started.
I won’t be too sad to see Scotty go, but some of the people we are being linked with make me cringe. Neil Lennon? No thanks!
I know it’s a bit out there but I think we should offer Woodgate the job. He done pretty well with a Bournemouth squad that had not performed and I think could be brought in under the guise of helping him prove them wrong for not extending him. His Bournemouth side played half-decent football and I reckon he could do a job here. Also, not likely to make a huge fuss about transfer business as he’s a young manager.