He gave the ball away like others but Dembele infuriated me by not risking a forward pass, passing accuracy worse than Parker (? would love to see any stats) or backwards.
I don't have a chalkboard to show backwards/sideways passes.
The problem with the stats is the sheer number of passes both made makes them have decent passing accuracy, sideways and backwards passes make passing accuracy look good.
http://www.whoscored.com/Matches/68...e-UEFA-Europa-League-2012-2013-Lyon-Tottenham
They're 6th and 7th for passing accuracy on 88% and 89%, Parker edges it. But Parker always has a ton of passes and today was no exception, Parker had 107 passes to Dembele's 83. They both had 1 key pass each.
Defensively Parker had only 1 tackle and 1 interception, compared to Dembele's 4 tackles and 3 interceptions and Holtby's 3 tackles and 5 interceptions.
Stats obviously don't show everything. Dembele not passing to Bale won't be in the stats, Parker running around to close people down despite not making a tackle in the end won't be in the stats...
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As for the thread's main question. If we get CL football, yes Parker will still be here. We won't buy another DM as cover for Sandro and sell Parker. We still need squad players that can play DM to cover for them both. CL football usually means there is huge importance in the squad for that season.
We're not going to be able to go out and buy 3 players for each position that are all of top quality to allow for rotation every match. Plus, Parker's speeches are meant to be quite good. We may as well keep him around for leadership, fight, will to win and effort... I don't think we'd be able to replace him with a DM of his quality that has those other qualities that will be prepared to sit on the bench... If you factor in how much we'd get for Parker and the money we'd have to pay for a young player that can replace him in all aspects we'd have our priorities mixed up.
There are key areas of the first XI and bench that can be improved without trying to upgrade a 2nd choice DM that effectively doesn't need replacing.
If our squad significantly improves or our first team significantly improves, we may not need to use Parker against many PL teams even if Sandro is injured anyway. I'm sure AVB would be tempted to play Holtby deeper sometimes and suchlike as it is, but we could end up with a lot more games against teams trying to park the bus, so we might have system tweaks or even a change in dynamic when it comes to midfield.
Parker might just end up being considered only when we're playing teams that actually attack us. I'm sure he can be given a run out for some games too, he'd be a good sub to have if you just wanted more energy but a solid option to close games up. (Plus, him slowing us down wouldn't be a problem if we were winning... As long as he did actually pass to Spurs players.)
He hasn't done badly defensively against a top team this season, at least I can't remember if he has. So he seems a solid choice for the bench. Plus, from the bench he is unlikely to come on as a sub when we are desperate to score... (Although Harry vs Villa last season might suggest otherwise.) That said, he and Dawson are players that don't mind yelling at people to wake them up, so depending on the situation, he might be a good person to send on when we're playing badly. (Remember last season how many times Parker was the only person with a good rating after we'd played badly. He's reliable and consistent.)
I secretly hope we get a VDV type player in the summer, so maybe that's why I'm totally ok with Parker being kept around. If we get a defence unlocking passer that scores more goals than our strikers and gets a ton of assists too, we'll probably end up playing Holtby in CM rather than just off the striker, possibly the same with Siggy. We have so many AMs, and Bale wants to play there too, so I'm not sure we will get a VDV type player, but between left wing being open for Dempsey/Siggy/Holtby and CL games meaning we can really rotate, it isn't as crazy as it sounds. (I know we have Townsend, Carroll, Falque, etc to come back too.)
Overall, I just guess I'd rather money was spent elsewhere when it comes to bringing people in... And there's no reason to lose our 2nd choice DM if we aren't going to replace him.
