He's Baaack

Yesterday Scott Parker's Burnley ensured automatic promotion to the Premier League with a win over third place Sheffield United. He's now won promotion for Fulham, Bournemouth, and Burnley. They had a great finish having not lost since early November to overtake Sheffield United in the standings. It still remains to be seen if Leeds or Burnley will win the league.

Burnley has had a ridiculously good defense this season. Over the span of 44 matches Burnley has allowed in just 15 goals - fifteen goals. A staggering 66% of their matches ended with a clean sheet. Of course, defense has always been Parker's strong point which is why I think Burnley needs to try as hard has possible to ditch Parker and replace him over the summer.

Consider the 2020-21 Fulham squad that floundered under Parker. Here is the back line:
Areola, Tete, Tosin, Andersen, and Robinson
I'd be satisfied if that was Fulham's back line today. But Fulham's 53 goals conceded that season (same as Brighton has allowed this season with 5 matches to go) was good enough to avoid relegation, it was a lack of goal scoring that doomed them. But consider what was available beyond that back line:

• Mitrovic - clearly under utilized as he later proved
• Anguissa - despite his poor showing at Fulham he's demonstrated that was a blip in his career
• Lookman - scored over 10 goals in each of the past three seasons with Atalanta
• Aina - has been a key player both defensively and creatively for Nottingham Forest
• Lemina - he can be hot and cold, but he did create some memorable moments for Wolves
• 4 years younger Cairney - he's getting old now, but he should have been close to peak form back then

That should have been a good enough squad to stay up. Instead Fulham were terrible to watch and went down easily. Of course then things nearly repeated at Bournemouth, but they pulled the trigger quicker. If Burnley want to stay up I'd say make the change before the season starts.