PHIL Parkinson is planning to get Wanderers out of their slump the only way he knows how.
In the midst of the toughest spell of his 15-month tenure at the Macron Stadium, the Whites boss is convinced his squad is better than their lowly league position suggests.
Defeat at Ipswich had been particularly galling, being that his side had arguably put in their best performance of the campaign. But the result made Parkinson determined to redouble his efforts.
Life at the bottom of the Championship goes hand-in-hand with pressure, and the cut-throat world of football management was underlined as three men – Harry Redknapp (Birmingham), Gary Caldwell (Chesterfield) and Michael Brown (Port Vale) – were all sacked within minutes of the final whistle on Saturday evening.
“I accept it,” Parkinson said. “The points return at the moment is very disappointing and I understand that but I have to keep doing the job to the best of my ability.
“I really do believe we have got a squad which can win games of football.
“Young players like Antonee Robinson, Josh Cullen, Reece Burke are growing into this division and getting better all the time but we need to get a win, when we do we’ll push on and we’ll be okay. We do need to find it sooner rather than later.”
Wanderers may point to an unfortunate deflection which gifted Cole Skuse the opening goal, or that they were chasing the game as David McGoldrick cemented three points in the 89th minute but Parkinson was realistic enough to see where his team’s shortfalls were on the day.
“The manner of the performance you would have hoped something would fall for us but equally we had 16 attempts on goal and only three or four of them were on target,” he said.
“As you all know, that ratio has got to be higher to win games. Last year it was way up – we weren’t a team who had loads of chances but the ratio was good.
“We got in good positions but we did not make the goalkeeper work enough. And games are won in both penalty boxes.”
Parkinson admits he would trade in some of the better performances his side have given this season for some precious league points.
“We had a bit of belief on Tuesday, even though we got beat. Sheffield United are a team that came up with us and were third or fourth in the table.
“I felt like we played with that belief again and Jem Karacan and Josh Cullen combined probably put in their best performance this season from the midfield players.
“All-round it was a decent performance but we don’t need pats on the back. We need to turn performances into wins.”
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