Like a affectionate father, Scott Parker shakes with humor with humor while approaching a meeting of his Burnley players in the canteen in his Gawthorpe Hall training field.
The team is concluding its own Claret traitors game, based on the television series, and the gossip is heavy with the way Ashley Barnes and Joe World have cheated everyone to win.
“Hours of discussion,” shouts Parker as he walks, glowing with gray knitted clothes to join the chit-chath.
The game was the idea of striker Zian Flemming and has generated a team union for two months with daily votes after training and images of the players on the wall of the cross gear room after each elimination.
Parker is delighted that his group has gelified after an agitated summer that saw more than 30 players come and go after the descent, in addition to his own appointment to succeed Vincent Kompany.
“I don't think it's close to such a tight group,” he reflects. That is an impressive statement since Parker played for six Premier League clubs and achieved Fulham and Bournemouth to promote.
Scott Parker believes that his Burnley team is the most adjusted group he has seen during his career.
Parker revealed that Ashley Barnes and Joe World have won the Clarets traitors game
The game was the idea of Zian Flemming and has been accredited to help the team union.
Burnley is in the mixture to give him a hat-trick and sit third in the championship before Friday's game against Sheffield Wednesday, but that only has half of the story.
Its defensive record has become a point of national conversation with 11 consecutive clean leaves and only nine goals admitted throughout the season, although 11 goals also explains why they follow Leeds and Sheffield United at the table.
Parker is proud of his team's refusal to admit, but insists that he is not prioritized by the score.
“The objective is the promotion, not to establish defensive records,” he tells Mail Sport firmly. 'Yes, our ambition is to be solid as a rock, but also be an attack force.
'There is a narrative that I am a defensive coach, but I still want my full back to bomb and commit bodies forward. I just need to run back to the other side so fast to protect our goal!
'At the beginning, we worked on the defensive side because the group was new and we had to establish central values; Cover, distances, equipment structure. During the last three months, we work 80 percent of the time in the attack phase. Parker jokes has not received a text message from former boss José Mourinho, whose Chelsea team has the admitted goals; 15 in 2004-05.
Both managers have benefited from their goalkeepers. Mourinho had Petr Cech, while Parker's No 1, James Trafford, will match a championship record if he maintains his 24th exclusion on Friday night.
“Last season it was difficult for the traffic with the loss of its place and the descent,” explains Parker. 'I would leave a dent in anyone. My work was to build it again.
Parker proved the tight nature of the group for helping to maintain 11 consecutive clean leaves
James Trafford will match a championship record if you can maintain a cleaner sheet
CJ EGAN-RILEY is part of Burnley's solid defense, but the whole team has contributed
'Fortunately, this is a young man with an incredible belief to ignore things. That is why I see him as an England goalkeeper. Our background is very young. CJ Egan-Riley, had not played senior football before. Bashir Humphreys Chelsea wine after six months on loan in Swansea. Lucas Pires did not speak an English word when he signed.
'The whole team has contributed. The players will tell you that I show clips from central strikers that protect the environment or ends that make recovery races. Everyone has to be involved.
Parker, the player, won 18 caps in England and was voted as a footballer in 2011. It was unfortunate that his career coincided with the generation of gold. Even his time in Chelsea was interrupted. “I was competing with world -class players like Frank Lampard and Claude Makelele who were better than me,” he acknowledges.
As manager, the 44 -year -old man has experienced ups and downs. Bournemouth fired him four games in the season in 2022 after attracting signings after a 9-0 defeat in Liverpool.
His spell at the Bruges club ended before he started when Benfica took them out of the Champions League.
“It sounds spongy, but it is a cold and hard fact that you discover more about yourself during difficult times,” he evaluates. 'Being in that touch line in Anfield was a unique place.
'That raw emotion was still there when the camera pointed to me five minutes after the game. Maybe I should have contained breathing, but I don't think he crossed the line saying that players needed help.
'I worked tirelessly for Bournemouth. They were in their second season in the championship and statistics show that only 10 percent of these teams are promoted, but we were. Bruges was difficult because I linked in mid -season and I had to process things so fast. I signed a three -year contract and after 10 weeks it ended.
Parker has experienced the minimum management after being fired by Bournemouth after a 9-0 defeat in 2022, on the left, before a brief spell by the Belgian Club of Witch, right.
The 44 -year -old man was chosen to take care of Burnley after 10 candidates were interviewed.
Parker hopes to take a third club to the top category after success with Fulham and Bournemouth
'I was sad because of the way it ended, more for my family. I have a 10 -year -old boy, we took it out of school and we all went there. Suddenly, you move and you have to find another school.
“They feel you hitting, you take a count of eight and go back up.”
Parker was the first of the 10 candidates interviewed for Burnley's work last summer. Clearly left an impression because after having met others, including Ruud Van Nistelrooy, Liam Rosenior and Craig Bellamy, the most intelligent manager in the country was used.
At some point, Burnley will recognize again for the first time since December 21. Parker promises that the general panorama will not derail, the impulse of the promotion. “One thing about this group always react in the right way,” he says.
Anything else would be a traitor.