This isn’t necessarily something that makes a great deal of difference for us this upcoming season.
However, it does make it largely important for further down the line, and that’s the crucial element of it.
The club announced yesterday that head coach Scott Parker has signed a new deal keeping him at the club until the summer of 2023, an extension on his former deal that would have kept him at the club until next summer.
Whilst it might be obvious, but I think what this contract shows more than anything else is faith. Not just in the job that he has done up until now, but also what he can do for us in the future. To me I see this as us following the Burnley model from a few years ago, where we’ve been promoted and even if we are to get relegated this season, the board clearly think that Parker will be the man to bring us back up again in 2021/22.
If Parker had still been on his deal that ended next summer, it would have been easier for the board to get rid of him this season, similar to the situation Slavisa Jokanovic found himself in when we were last in the Premier League.
Now though, we know that Parker really is going to be the club’s man for the next few years at least, and it’s just another thing that the board are getting right when it comes to how they are going to manage things in the top flight.
If they could just apply that to the rest of the transfer window, then I’d be a perfectly happy man, but as things stand they aren’t giving him the best stuff to work with in all areas of the team.