Scott Parker slams Fulham director of football Tony Khan for publicly apologising for his side’s performance vs Villa
SCOTT PARKER has slammed Fulham co-owner Tony Khan for publicly apologising for his side’s performance following their hammering by Aston Villa. The Cottagers’ director of football immediately took to Twitter after the West Londoners suffered their third defeat of the season in a 3-0 drubbing by the Villans. Khan, son of Fulham owner Shahid […]
SCOTT PARKER has slammed Fulham co-owner Tony Khan for publicly apologising for his side’s performance following their hammering by Aston Villa.
The Cottagers’ director of football immediately took to Twitter after the West Londoners suffered their third defeat of the season in a 3-0 drubbing by the Villans.
Khan, son of Fulham owner Shahid Khan, apologised for the “performance” by the players and promised “better efforts from this squad” while also giving fans an update on the pursuit of a new centre-back.
But Parker, 39, has been left far from impressed at the public dressing down and feels Khan should stick to his own role within the club.
He said: “I just don’t agree with that. You don’t need to apologise for the performance, the performance was there and there was nothing wrong with it.
“If you want to apologise for a performance that means you are apologising for a lack of work ethic, a lack of desire and lack of energy and people not really bothering.
“When you play a football match you can lose it, you can have bad games, you can make mistakes and for that you should never apologise.
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“Every single one of the players worked tirelessly hard during that game.
“As a football club I will accept nothing less than that. I will be the first to have an issue with the team and I would be the first to apologise if that was the case.
“I think Tony is passionate and he obviously wants the best for the team and I totally understand that. But ultimately It’s my job to try to manage a group of players.”
Fulham have now conceded a staggering ten goals in their first three league games since their immediate return to the top-flight.
The last time the Cottagers were in the Prem, they didn’t keep a clean sheet in their first 18 games, conceded 81 goals and were relegated straight back to the Championship.
And Parker believes Khan’s apology on behalf of the players was “unhelpful” as his side fight to stop history repeating itself.
The former player added: “I learned a long while ago when I was playing, the things I cannot control are energy-sappers.
“They are things you can waste a lot of your time on, you can’t control it, and before you know it, they bog you down.
“As soon as that tweet comes out I am thinking about how I react, how I react to the squad, how they are feeling, how we are going to move on to the next game.
“I am going to try everything in my absolute power to not let relegation happen again.”
The West Londoners have signed six new players this season but have struggled to snap up a new centre-back as they prepare to face rivals Brentford in the Carabao Cup on Thursday.
A deal for Sassuolo’s Marlon fell through due to a failed medical while the club have been linked with Watford’s Craig Dawson, Jean-Clair Todibo at Barcelona and Tottenham’s Juan Foyth.
When asked on an update on his involvement with the transfer situation, Parker replied: “I know who the targets are which I am aware of,
“But in terms of the actual technical side in what’s happening I don’t and to be honest I’m glad. It would probably take up the majority of my energy. It seems quite drawn out .
“Our pool we’re fishing in for players is very small compared to our competition because of a lot of things put in place, so targets are limited and that’s why maybe it’s proving difficult.”
Possible starting XI against Brentford: Rodak, Odoi, Hector, Ream, Robinson, Johansen , Onomah, Kebano, Cordova-Reid, Knockaert, Kamara