I think there’s only so much defending that a man can do before he has to wait for results to come in.
Otherwise it just looks like blind loyalty rather than as if it’s coming with any sort of conviction and hope that things might change. That’s the sense I’m getting from Scott Parker when talking about Fulham forward Aleksandar Mitrovic.
As has been well documented, his form hasn’t been the greatest this season, but the Fulham boss still insists that he’ll be able to turn things around. Speaking at his press conference ahead of the game with Liverpool, Parker wanted to calm any notion that the Serbian forward has been the only player struggling for form by pointing out he’s not the only one to be going through a bad patch right now:
On Mitro: “He’s been fine, it’s not just Mitro there are other players as well. You use a squad in different ways, this is part & parcel of the modern game. I’m sure Aleks would be the first to want to play every week. But as I said before he has a large part to play this year.”
— Peter Rutzler (@peterrutzler) December 11, 2020
Is Aleksandar Mitrovic our most important player?
Yes
No
It’s somewhat honourable that Parker is treating Mitrovic like this and constantly going to bat for him, maybe just so he can keep his spirits up and give him a bit of a mental boost, which in turn might produce an upturn in goals.
But as I said, there will come a time where patience is likely going to run thin and Parker will have to be more brutal towards him. Call it tough love if you will, but he can’t keep being molly-coddled like this.
What about you? What do you make of Parker’s comments?