T.R.O.Y wrote:Firstly, using squad value as an indicator of quality is deeply flawed. I’d imagine you’ve used transfermarkt or similar to do so? Which is essentially someone’s opinion of a players market value. A better indicator would be how much is spent improving the squad each year as what you’ll find in most leagues is an almostdirect correlation between spending and final league position.
You’re often criticised for your armchair opinions - mostly unfairly - but claiming an intricate knowledge of a managers performance and contribution would be difficult without behind closed doors access or at the minimum seeing a lot of games.
Since the opening 10 games Parkinson has created a solid team, up until the last few games we looked solid and we’re grinding out results that was built on a defence that could keep clean sheets, and an attack that could nick a goal. The evidence is that we are not adrift in the bottom 3, had we conceded and played like this all season your comments would carry some weight, but we haven’t or we’d be down already.
The wheels have come off, no doubt about it. And personally I don’t think we have enough to stay up, PP will go if we don’t I’m sure of that, but I don’t think he’s done a bad job with us at all under very difficult circumstances.
My question that neither yourself nor Martin have ever managed to answer is where should we be with this squad of players? And who is under performing?
Here's an answer....
There is no "where should we be" other than "where we deserve to be" - which is exactly where we are.
The real subtext of your comment is that you are implying that the "lack of investment" compared to other clubs has hampered our progress (rather than our progress being hampered by the manager's inability to organise and motivate his players) but that seems to me a flawed argument for the following reasons.
1. How do you measure investment in the squad? If it's not the current market value of the squad (and ours is by no means the lowest value) then perhaps it's net transfer expenditure? If so, 8 teams in the Championship have a greater net positive balance on transfers than us i.e. they have sold more than they have bought.
With the sale of Madine (and Proctor) our net transfers are E6.89m income this season, but Villa (E15.03m) Preston (E8.10m) Brentford (E9.07m) Derby (E9.01m) Norwich (E18.49m) Sunderland (E31.74m) Hull (E25.33m) and Forest (E10.45m) have all spent less than us on bolstering the squad and there are several others that have spent less than they have received.
These figures are not "an opinion" but are purely the facts on what each club received for players v what the club has paid for players - but if you still want to labour the point perhaps you could tell us what criteria should be used to show the relative "lack of investment" and what facts support that argument? We can cry into our soup about not being in a position to buy our way out of trouble any more, but sooner or later the manager has to go to work and make it work.
2. As alluded to previously, it's not all about money and any squad of professionals can succeed if they are organised properly, playing a system that works to their strengths and are motivated to perform to their best - all the manager's responsibility. The only evidence I can provide to show that Parkinson is failing in this are our performances (and especially the nature of them) our results and our league position. So the answer to your question "who is underperforming?" is the primarily the manager, but also the entire team as they are not organised, playing a system that suits them or suitably motivated.
But I'd be interested to hear if you have anything to show that the manager is performing well.
There's another aspect to this equation and that's team selection. Not sure if it's due to dogmatism or prejudice but there are players in the squad who don't get a proper chance regardless of how poorly the regulars are doing, so it's not as though Parky doesn't have tactical and selection options if he has the nous to try something different. For example, without a serious goal threat at present he could be looking at the squad and consider going for raw pace up front - which would make sense seeing as he sets up so deep and there's space to work with. But he won't and therefore comes across as a manager with limited creativity and unwilling to take a chance when the chips are down.
Ultimately, team and system selection, player motivation and organisation are all down to the manager and those three things have the biggest impact on performances which is why the manager is primarily responsible IMO.
Having said all that, I am still hopeful that Parky can rescue the situation - but I'm not at all confident he will.