Bournemouth sacking Scott Parker was unsurprising but also undeserved

The good news for Scott Parker is that Bournemouth’s owners agree with him. The club are indeed “ill-equipped” for the Premier League.

The bad news for Scott Parker is that they now have decided the most easily replaced piece of equipment is (hang on) Scott Parker himself; that the simplest way of addressing the concerns raised by Scott Parker over the team managed by Scott Parker is to fire Scott Parker.

Perhaps there is even some logic here. On Saturday night, as Parker spoke about squad strength in the wake of the 9-0 shellacking by Liverpool, Bournemouth looked like an embattled Premier League club led by an honest but relegation-haunted head coach. By Monday morning Bournemouth had become simply an embattled Premier League club. So there’s one half of that problem solved with a click of the fingers.

Either way Parker has become the first Premier League sacking of 2022-23. He is the 12th quickest, in terms of number of days from the start of the season, in the league’s 30-year history. More worrying still, seven of those above him on the list and the three immediately below (Javi Gracia: this is the territory here) never managed a Premier League club again.

What is unique about Parker is that he is now the undisputed No 1 for promoted clubs. No other promoted team have acted so quickly – and it is not hard to see why, mainly because this is such an utterly ruthless act, a junking of any basic notion of loyalty and employer relations.

The initial reaction will, of course, be sympathy. Bournemouth have lost three times this season: twice against two of the top three teams in the world, once against the league leaders. Parker got the club back up at the first time of asking, a feat that is literally money in the pocket