Parky in or out


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My answer depends entirely on who might follow. As it stands, we have a worse manager than the previous one. There's little to suggest that sacking Parkinson would result in us ending up with a better manager. In the current situation, I'd keep Parky. That's not because I think he's any good, just that a replacement is likely to be even worse.
 
Stick and not twist for me. Too much of a risk to change him a quarter of a way through the season; and to be fair to him, we are up there. Players would need time to adapt to a new manager’s style of play. Great if done in pre-season, but not during.
Different story if we were off the pace of course but we are not currently. I think we are going to have to live with the style of football until at least the end of the season.
 
It's infuriating this is even being discussed. It's ludicrous to even think of it in current situation, and also literally pointless as it will not happen. Will not be even considered unless results turn.

To sack a manager in our current league position would be ridiculed, rightly so.

Have we learnt nothing?
 
Thanks for asking in such a polite manner. Nice to see a bit of civility on this forum for a change. :D

I have a number of reasons for thinking we should be keeping him on right now. (I'm open to changing my mind later depending on results in future matches but we're talking about this moment in time).

Firstly, his record so far in the league this season is excellent, regardless of how you might feel about the style of football on show. What kind of message would it send out to other managers if we were willing to sack someone who's averaging more than 2 points per game, four points off top with a game in hand after a quarter of the season?

Secondly, he's been working on a shoestring budget so far. Compare the millions of pounds spent on players under Jack Ross with the pittance spent by Phil Parkinson. And yet he's never complained about it. If we're going to be sustainable long-term rather than funded by a sugar daddy then we'll need someone capable of getting results with meagre resources, and if we were to get new owners willing to spunk money up the wall then I'd like to give him a chance to actually spend some money and see what kind of team he'd want to build if funded properly.

Something we should probably also take into account is that we're supposedly on the verge of a takeover. This has a couple of implications with regard to finding another manager after Parkinson:

- Getting rid right now would mean having to find a manager willing to take us on, knowing that the purse strings are virtually closed and he may well find himself out on his ear again in a matter of days/weeks/months due to new owners wanting a change.

- After paying off Parkinson there would likely be even less money in the budget available for paying a manager's wages. We're highly unlikely to find someone with a higher profile than Parkinson willing to come for less money than we're paying him.

Talking purely about these last few points, we've seen repeatedly over the past five years or so how the #AnyoneButTheCurrentBloke mentality can bite us on the arse. I don't think it is a good time to be rolling those dice again when we're in a period of uncertainty regarding club ownership.

If we were taken over by rich new owners tomorrow and the question became "Parkinson in or out under the new owners?" then I'd refer you to the first two points I made in this post and suggest that we gave him a January transfer window with a proper budget to see what he can do, and judge him again after three quarters of the season.

As for your final couple of questions:

Do I think we'd stand a chance in the Championship as it is? No. I would want to see significant changes to the playing squad in the Summer transfer window if we were promoted. Hopefully by then we will have been taken over by new owners and there will be money available to strengthen the squad. If not, then hopefully the pull of playing for a big club like ours will be enough to attract higher profile free transfers than the other teams in the division could manage. If we do get promoted despite the lack of spending, then Parkinson will have shown himself capable of operating under those kinds of financial constraints and should be given the chance to continue.

Do I think we have a sustainable type of football on display? For me, the style of football you can play depends on a couple of things: firstly the players you have available to you (you can't play tiki-taka with players who can't pass a ball accurately, you can't play target-man-focussed hoofball with a 5-foot-six slowcoach leading the line, etc.) and the mentality of your opposition towards you (if the opposition park all 11 men behind the ball then good luck trying to play through-balls or over-the-top balls for your players to chase, whereas if the opposition are pushing their back line forward then you'll have more space to break behind them). I doubt we'd have so many teams trying to frustrate us with the park-the-bus strategy from the first minute as we have had in League 1, so there'd be more scope to use other strategies ourselves.

Do I think we have a well-run youth setup? I could be wrong, but as far as I'm aware, Parkinson doesn't "run" the youth setup, nor does he even choose the people who do, so I'm not sure what relevance this has to the question of "Parky in or out". If we're talking about first team opportunities for youths or lack thereof, I think he's likely going about things in a balanced and sensible manner:

We're concentrating on the league this year and so first team opportunities in the league have been limited but he has given a number of youths a chance to impress in the cups.

In the league we've often had various younger players on the bench but have rarely been in a position in a match where it would be sensible or fair to bring on inexperienced players. The ideal situation there is for us to be up by at least two or three clear goals and looking comfortable by the time we're thinking about bringing on subs, so that there's less pressure on the players we bring on.

In the early stages of the transition from youth to first team, there needs to be an element of "kid gloves" treatment for a number of reasons: you don't want the kid getting down and demotivated if they don't make an instant impact, you don't want the fans to turn on the kid if he doesn't make an immediate impact, you don't want to risk the kid "burning out" by putting too much pressure on him, and you don't want him getting too big for his boots and have their agent start looking higher up than your club when it's time to negotiate a contract (see Maja).

Would I like to see more youths making the step up to first team football? Of course, but it can't be just for the sake of it. There has to be a sensible approach to it, and as far as I'm concerned Parkinson has been doing just about enough on that front under the circumstances we've found ourselves in, allowing chances when possible but without ever overstepping into the realms of over-reliance on youth.
Interesting post and I agree with some of what you post, but for me the major issue is that every single fan knew that the problem facing the team was a lack of pace, Parkinson's signings of Graham and O'Brien show that he was completely oblivious to this fact and for me this will ultimately cost us and thus him his job.
 
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If we can get someone who's above our current level like Eddie Howe then aye fair enough take the gamble, but for someone like Paul Cook then obviously no.
 
If we can get someone who's above our current level like Eddie Howe then aye fair enough take the gamble, but for someone like Paul Cook then obviously no.

Not sure what the obsession with him his.

Not that it matters like, Parkinson is going nowhere.
 
Out

Results haven't been too bad but the football is horrific, persisently picks the same shite plodders, doesn't give any of the younguns a go. He will never be good enough for the Championship and he's the most uninspiring man in the world. His transfers have also been shite.
 
Short of a takeover, him being sacked is just about the only thing that would make me hopeful.

who they replace him with is another story but I’d roll the dice.
Stick and not twist for me. Too much of a risk to change him a quarter of a way through the season; and to be fair to him, we are up there. Players would need time to adapt to a new manager’s style of play. Great if done in pre-season, but not during.
Different story if we were off the pace of course but we are not currently. I think we are going to have to live with the style of football until at least the end of the season.

conversely, a new manager who isn’t a dour loser coming in and taking the handbrake off might be the best thing that could happen to this team.
It's infuriating this is even being discussed. It's ludicrous to even think of it in current situation, and also literally pointless as it will not happen. Will not be even considered unless results turn.

To sack a manager in our current league position would be ridiculed, rightly so.

Have we learnt nothing?

we won’t get promoted if PP stays: I am 100% confident of that.
 
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It's infuriating this is even being discussed. It's ludicrous to even think of it in current situation, and also literally pointless as it will not happen. Will not be even considered unless results turn.

To sack a manager in our current league position would be ridiculed, rightly so.

Have we learnt nothing?

Its been like this throughout history. When Durban was here we had a good side in the top division, not the most exciting but mixing it with the best. Even then there was a strong cohort wanted him out and even though everyone looks back and says what a disgrace it was at the time there wasn't a great deal of kicking off when he was sacked. Some supporters in every era are just mental.
 
Short of a takeover, him being sacked is just about the only thing that would make me hopeful.

who they replace him with is another story but I’d roll the dice.


conversely, a new manager who isn’t a dour loser coming in and taking the handbrake off might be the best thing that could happen to this team.


we won’t get promoted if PP stays: I am 100% confident of that.
Entitled to your opinion as we all are, but mine is it would paint us in a bad light and would be stupid to sack a manager who is doing well (results wise).

I think he could get us promoted, nothing to fear in this league. Statistics back this up as well.
 
He plays shite, defensive football, but then again our team is shite and we have no decent strikers. Hes doing no better or worse than Ross, will we go up automatically as it stands? Its a complete coin flip I think, but im edging towards no at the minute. I'd say give him 4-5 more games, unless we get minimum of 10 points from them, he needs to go im afraid.
 
Entitled to your opinion as we all are, but mine is it would paint us in a bad light and would be stupid to sack a manager who is doing well (results wise).

I think he could get us promoted, nothing to fear in this league. Statistics back this up as well.

we’ve just lost a first round tie to a team who haven’t won all season. I don’t care if people think badly of us, there is a case for him to go otherwise people wouldn’t be praying for it constantly.

looking beyond the stats we have been awful. Red cards and pens have handed us a few games and we have scraped by in others. I can’t think of more than two convincing performances all season and when we played Portsmouth we got shown up for what we are.

all opinions as you say but I’m confident we will still be in this league if we don’t change manager. The damage he is doing to the young players is quite another matter but also grounds for sacking him off.
 
He plays shite, defensive football, but then again our team is shite and we have no decent strikers. Hes doing no better or worse than Ross, will we go up automatically as it stands? Its a complete coin flip I think, but im edging towards no at the minute. I'd say give him 4-5 more games, unless we get minimum of 10 points from them, he needs to go im afraid.
He is mathematically doing better than Ross. In fact our greatest ever start at this tier. Better than Dennis Smith.
 
It's infuriating this is even being discussed. It's ludicrous to even think of it in current situation, and also literally pointless as it will not happen. Will not be even considered unless results turn.

To sack a manager in our current league position would be ridiculed, rightly so.

Have we learnt nothing?
The position that Jack Ross was sacked from? I don't think we should bladder Parkinson, but there's context and discussion to be had around whether he has got the best out of his situation.
 
He plays shite football which is boring as fuck. But he isn't going anywhere. No point calling for him to be sacked. He's staying until there are new owners or his contact expires.

This sums it up nicely. The club is in limbo in every way. We arent going up, arent going down (yet!).
 
we’ve just lost a first round tie to a team who haven’t won all season. I don’t care if people think badly of us, there is a case for him to go otherwise people wouldn’t be praying for it constantly.

looking beyond the stats we have been awful. Red cards and pens have handed us a few games and we have scraped by in others. I can’t think of more than two convincing performances all season and when we played Portsmouth we got shown up for what we are.

all opinions as you say but I’m confident we will still be in this league if we don’t change manager. The damage he is doing to the young players is quite another matter but also grounds for sacking him off.
Surely the best stats are how many points we have, how many good chances we are creating, and how many good chances we allow the opposition. Doing well on all of those.

Of course goals scored is a stat we are not doing so well on, but this should improve if we keep creating chances.

Let's just see. Like I said, a pointless debate because no way is he getting sacked anyway.
 
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