Martin Jol.
We all know you still love your old club Martin, love ’em enough to not want to see Parker hindering our midfield one minute longer. Love ’em enough to have him hindering Fulham’s.
You’ll read a lot of crap about Scott Parker’s two year stint at the Lane since his departure to Fulham. Crap about him proving people wrong, having a great first season and never letting the side down. Talk about him never being the same after injury.
It’s all bull. He was exactly the same in the first game as he was in the last game. A hindrance.
That first game he was lucky. After the initial failings of the first two games played he took all the plaudits for the turnaround when very little was to do with his presence. Three other players were the spark not him. First we had a striker who at the time was interested in playing, Adebayor, we had Ledley back at the back in imperious form and Modric had come back from his little pre-season I wanna go to Madrid
hissy fit.
All three of them were more vital to the recovery than Parker.
Take goals, he provided none and contributed what something like one assist – in the first game. In defence, as the holding, screening midfielder he was meant to stop the attacks yet read through all the match reports on here and you’ll lose track of the number of times he was stood next to a goal scorer or had run past him before scoring. His defensive role seemed mainly, being there, giving away stupid fouls around the box or falling over. The number of tackle free games for a so called defensive midfielder was incredible.
Then his midfield role. The trademark, copyrighted Ponderous Parker Pirouette. Spurs made for fast counter attacks immediately slowed as Parker went through another 360 degrees. You’ll hear talk of him as a conduit, getting things moving with little passes, oh his great passing percentage, those passes not successful were mainly forward ones, he couldn’t half butcher a forward move. You won’t read about the Chuckle Brothers passing – to you, to me – where a player in trouble would offload to him only to receive the ball straight back.
Again I lose track of the times I saw Modric in a sticky situation with only two choices. Either do something risky or pass to Parker. Time and again the little Croat chose the first option. No doubt reasoning if he did pass to Parker he’d get the ball straight back. Hell Jake Livermore came in for Parker and completely dominated Everton in a way Parker never managed.
Scott Parker is a very ‘Arry Redknapp player. A player who responds to just fackin’ run around a bit
and doesn’t need it translated. A player he loved while far the more talented Sandro was berated and not given a chance. It wasn’t until Sandro got a proper run under AVB that people started looking at Parker but had to convince themselves it was a different player from their hero.
Parker’s time at Spurs is summed up in one moment. Sunderland at home, nil nil, desperately needing the three points for a top 4 finish, two more points would have seen them a point above the Goon scum at the end of the season. The seconds are ticking away everybody bar two players are in or around the Sunderland box. One of those is Parker the other the Spurs ‘keeper, Friedel. Parker has the ball and what does he do? That’s right passes it back to Friedel. Whistle goes, game over.