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Scott Parker

Rossi22 said:
Has been a lot better recently.
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yes credit to him. is it our high tempo and intensity gameplay that makes it difficult for non-starters to just get started again?
you know the script - opposing team long term injury player makes return and spurs game, plays a blinder and scores.... when was the last time it happened for us?
 
I think BAE looks a little paunchier than usual, while we all know how long it took Ade to get fit after missing preseason. Meanwhile Sandro and Dawson and to some extent Siggy have hit the ground running after their layoffs. My guess is that it's an attitude thing with Benny and Ade, maybe we stepped up our fitness regime and they weren't so enthusiastic about it?

Parker is a different case because of his age and the sheer number of games he has had to carry teams for over his career (Dempsey for example has played far fewer professional games because he started late). Parker has covered an insane amount of ground every game - esp for his last club West Ham - so I think he has a lot of wear and tear by now, and that's hard to recuperate from at his age. He needs momentum to rebuild stamina and sharpness.

I would also argue that the heightened workrate off the ball from most of the team has helped his recent form too. If we were as lackadaisical in Europe as we were earlier this season, Parker would have too much of a burden to carry. Why are we looking sharper and stronger of late? One possibility is that we have timed our fitness to peak in the business end of the season, when we have the most difficult games. Barca for example schedule for a weak February to prepare for the more difficult CL games later on. I think Arsenal do the same thing, but they never get past February :)lol:); OTOH, it could just be that losing all chances for a trophy by this stage makes them refocus everything on the league and top four.
 
punk_is_back` said:
Of course we would miss Parker given that Sandro was out. Doesn't mean we can't ask for a better younger backup to replace him next season. Parker has heart, but is limited in what he can do with the ball and doesn't appear to understand the tactical side of the game, often playing by instinct. The same can be said for people like Walker. I expect my CMs to be able to move the ball quickly, without taking a million touches and slowing the tempo down.
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How do you know this? He could have a detailed understanding and follow his manager's instructions to the letter for all we know.
 
milo said:
How do you know this? He could have a detailed understanding and follow his manager's instructions to the letter for all we know.
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Occam's Razor.

It's far more likely that an English footballer is slightly deficient in the mental aspects of the game than a manager of AVB's apparent class is asking a midfielder to only pass to the opposition or to hold on to the ball until all our players are marked. ;)
 
England midfielder Scott Parker using Tottenham Hotspur's success as an incentive to turn to management

Scott Parker has no doubt what he wants to do when his football career eventually ends. “I would like to manage,” the 32-year-old Tottenham Hotspur midfielder, who has just been recalled to the England squad for the forthcoming World Cup qualification ties, reveals.

“It’s what I think I’d be good at," said Parker. "There’s a tactical side to it and that’s relevant but if you can manage players and how they are and how they feel – I think that’s how you get the best out of them and that’s why I want to go into management.

“I’ve seen managers who are brilliant on the training pitch, with their tactics but are not so good at dealing with players and understanding their needs. I think my experience with different managers helps and I have a good understanding of what I feel you need to do to become a very good manager and build the best team.”

The pressure on managers, the scrutiny, the sackings – does it not put him off? “Football is in the blood,” Parker, who has just started taking his coaching badges, says.

“It’s a bug. We beat Arsenal and the changing room is the happiest it can be, then we play Liverpool and we lose. You are up, then you are down. I’m sure as a manager it’s the same. There’s only one guarantee, of course, and you will get the sack. But it’s something I really want to get into.”

On Sunday, after having, just, knocked Inter Milan out of the Europa League, Parker will hope to be ‘up’ again with Spurs at home to Fulham in that intense pursuit of a Champions League place. On Sunday he will join the England squad, for the first time since he was injured at Euro 2012. “I still strive, I still want to play for England,” Parker says.

No one could ever accuse Parker of not striving. A principled character he strives also to bring that degree of honesty to his life off the pitch as well.

He is speaking at the Nightingale Academy in Edmonton Green, north London, which has a partnership with the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation who have a full-time employee based at the school that struggled academically and with behavioural issues. Parker says he is acutely aware of how the actions of footballers can impact on the young.

“I do see footballers as role models and maybe that’s because I have three kids myself,” says the father of nine-year-old Frankie, Murphy, eight, and five-year-old Sonny.

“I’d like to think that over the years people see me as someone who does things in the right way. I have respect for people, whoever they may be, and I’d like to think that transfers back to me. So role models are something that I strongly believe in.”

To the extent that there are some players, he says, he would prefer his children not to idolise. “Maybe I sometimes think: ‘I don’t really want them to look up to someone like him,’ ” he admits. “I do think like that as a parent.”

Not that Parker is too judgmental. “Football, when the whistle blows, sometimes you are going to do things, you are going to react to things, that every player must sit at home afterwards and think: ‘Why did I do that? What was I thinking?’ It’s hard to make judgements because of the heat of the moment but there are lines that some people cross.”

Not that, either, when Parker crosses that white line, he ever appears to leave anything behind. It has always been his style but, if anything, it has intensified in the last six years since he started working with sports psychologist Mike Griffiths.

"I raise an image of Parker at White Hart Lane in the first-leg of the tie against Inter. Spurs are three goals up, it is the dying minutes and yet he is straining ever sinew – it can be seen in his face – to make a tackle.

Parker laughs. “I don’t want to let anyone down. You realise your role in the team and that’s what you try to do. There are always messages going on in my head – I wouldn’t want to say what, you’d probably laugh.

"But I’m always reinforcing the messages – what my objectives are, and I have objectives every time I run out on the pitch – and I guess at those moments, like the one you raise, I’m reinforcing them at the time when maybe my body is saying ‘I want to give up’.

“He [Griffiths] helps make things a bit clearer for me. We are all human and I have the same worries and fears as everyone else. Sometimes you feel bad on the day, might not feel too well but you have to grind out at least a 7/10 performance. I suppose I’ve just become a bit more mentally strong and been able to block out the bad stuff and focus. He helps me create clearer pictures, objectives. It’s a bit more ‘this is what we need to do and this is how we do it’.”

Mental toughness is a key factor for Tottenham head coach Andre Villas-Boas, especially with games coming thick and fast and fatigue creeping in.

Parker has a strong bond with the Portuguese – just three years his senior – who had wanted to sign him when he took over as Chelsea manager in the summer of 2011.

“I guess I had that in the back of my mind that he wanted me,” says Parker, who missed the first half of the campaign because of the aggravated Achilles problem he had at the end of last season and which he took into the Euros.

“But it’s difficult when you are injured. My main focus was still to show him what I can do. I was eager to get out there and get a relationship going with the manager.”

Parker is full of praise for Villas-Boas’s decision to come back to the Premier League despite his bruising experience at Chelsea.

“Even our fans were a little bit ‘is he the right man?’. But he’s turned everyone around. He’s done fantastically well. Since he’s been here he’s been a credit to himself, he’s building a team, built a very good team spirit.

"He’s very open, his man-management is very good, he speaks to the players very well, he’s very well organised. As a player the one thing you want above all from a manager is that he’s straight with you and he’s very honest.”

With nine league games to go – and a Europa League quarter-final – and Spurs in third place, that Champions League place is highly attainable.

Last year’s experience, finishing fourth but missing out because of Chelsea’s triumph, is a spur for Spurs.

“What happened last season is spurring us on, I can’t deny that,” Parker says. “And as a professional I do realise from the outside that people are also maybe asking the question as to whether we can do it.

"We need to use that and say: ‘You know what? We can’t fold like we did last year or get a couple of bad results.’ I’m sure we will be OK. In football you go on runs and ours came to an end at Liverpool so we need to go on another one now.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ss-as-an-incentive-to-turn-to-management.html
 
Putting in Zokora like performances more and more often. Running around like a headless chicken and finding it hard to complete 10yard passes
 
WhoopWhoop said:
Putting in Zokora like performances more and more often. Running around like a headless chicken and finding it hard to complete 10yard passes
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Last season you could hold the same criticisms to him, with the inclusion that he could tackle. Nowadays he's getting the man more than the ball. He was past it last year and is past it this year.
 
Parker hasbeenojr worst player since he's comeback. The most frustrating player since Jenas. Can't run any more,canttacklelike he did. His a passing, movement, anything in the final third is abysmal. Very often we'll dominate play, he'll get the ball and we lose it. fudging can't bear watching him. Huddlestone, Carroll, holtby anyone other than him.
 
Will defo be sold in the summer, looks well past it.

Makes you appreciate just how good Sandro is.
 
GrimsbyYid said:
Parker hasbeenojr worst player since he's comeback. The most frustrating player since Jenas. Can't run any more,canttacklelike he did. His a passing, movement, anything in the final third is abysmal. Very often we'll dominate play, he'll get the ball and we lose it. fudging can't bear watching him. Huddlestone, Carroll, holtby anyone other than him.
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To be honest, what i'm seeing now is not much different to what we saw last season. Fans in England are easily deceived by the All Action types true effectiveness.
 
First half of last season he was great but then he got gassed out and couldn't run properly and just gave the ball away constantly. That spinning on the ball thing he always tries really irritates me.

If you think back a few years ago he was a proper box to box midfielder and got plenty of goals with bursts into the area, now he does none of that and seems to be unable to shoot straight.
 
Very frustrating again today. His involvement (or rather lack of an involvement) before the 1-2 goal was very symptomatic imo. Just isn't getting up into situations he would have been all over when at his best for us.

He's always been a passenger going forward for us, but when he can't do the defensive things either I struggle to see why he's starting every game. I think he would be better if he only started a game a week, perhaps not all his fault.

I really struggle to see why AVB insists on keeping him on the pitch when we're chasing games and looking for a goal.
 
braineclipse said:
Very frustrating again today. His involvement (or rather lack of an involvement) before the 1-2 goal was very symptomatic imo. Just isn't getting up into situations he would have been all over when at his best for us.

He's always been a passenger going forward for us, but when he can't do the defensive things either I struggle to see why he's starting every game. I think he would be better if he only started a game a week, perhaps not all his fault.

I really struggle to see why AVB insists on keeping him on the pitch when we're chasing games and looking for a goal.
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Maybe because he sees him as a senior player and is scared to upset the applecart. He seems to have a lot of influence in the dressing room.
 
punk_is_back` said:
Maybe because he sees him as a senior player and is scared to upset the applecart. He seems to have a lot of influence in the dressing room.
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AVB had no problems leaving Parker out when Sandro was fit. It seemed clear that Sandro would be the preferred player of the two of them and that Sandro-Dembele was our first choice central midfield.

After all the issues at Chelsea I could understand it if AVB was careful about dropping a senior player, but I just can't see that Parker would be unprofessional enough to make an issue out of not starting and finishing every game when we're playing two games per week on a regular basis.
 
I see your point for sure, and again, for me, with Parker these are the games we have to just say 'well he has spirit, drive and fight' versus lament the very obvious things he cannot do (I'm with you all the way)...
 
thfcsteff said:
I see your point for sure, and again, for me, with Parker these are the games we have to just say 'well he has spirit, drive and fight' versus lament the very obvious things he cannot do (I'm with you all the way)...
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You do know I like and appreciate your posts Steff and your positivity is a good thing.

I do wonder if anyone on here would have been able to praise a players spirit, drive and fight after cheaply letting not just one, but two Everton players walk through our midfield in the buildup to their 1-2 goal if that player wasn't Scott Parker though.

I can go quite far in accepting that players are limited, I've accepted Parker for what he is, or rather what he's supposed to be and even defended him on here from time to time. He's not being that at the moment though imo.
 
Don't like knocking our players but gotta say think Parker was terrible today however he is a leader and I don't see anyone else in squad bar maybe Livermore who will put in a tackle like Parker does or at least tries to. Champions league or not I can see quite an upheaval in the squad come summer with Parker gallas adebayor and assou-ekotto all being senior player all most likely seeing the door.
 
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