Burnley manager Scott Parker is a “a freak in a good way”, at least according to midfielder Zian Flemming.
He’s been speaking to Voetbal International about the Burnley manager and the Clarets training for the dark arts next season.
Burnley will be competing in the Premier League again next season after a superb campaign under Parker, who replaced Vincent Kompany in the summer after he left to join Bayern Munich.
They eventually finished second behind Leeds United, with both sides finishing on 100 points but Leeds’ superior goal difference, 65 to 53, earning them the Championship title.
It’s been an impressive campaign under Parker, though, who turned Burnley into a side who only conceded 16 goals throughout the entire campaign.
He’s now a seasoned manager, particularly when it comes to getting teams out of the Championship, and Flemming admits he’s been left very impressed by him.
“He is by far the best coach I have had,” he said.
“In a new group, he immediately established a top sports culture. You have to work very hard here. The bar is high, every training session, every exercise. Here I can blindly trust the tactical plan every match.
“Then Scott Parker must be a strange guy, you think. But he isn’t even that. Just a great guy. Human, approachable. A bit of a freak, in a good way, in the amount of time and energy he puts into his work.”
Parker had always been seen as a manager who preferred an open style of football, having employed such styles at Fulham and Bournemouth previously in his career.
That’s still the case at Burnley but, as their defensive record attests, is now paired with a steel that was previously missing from his sides.
There’s also been a clear focus on game management, or what some would call the dark arts, something Flemming had never been taught before arriving at Burnley.
“We don’t do that to the point of being naïve (playing from the back). We haven’t been averse to playing the long ball when the match called for it,” he added.
“Game management, they call it here. I never learned that in the Netherlands, not even at Ajax. Not consciously, at least. I already noticed a big difference at Millwall. To win a match, you have to know when to accelerate or slow down.
“When the keeper has to take a long goal kick, when you have to provoke a foul to regain momentum. Here we train specifically for that, we talk about it, we watch footage. In the Netherlands, clubs are much more focused on their own game principles and the importance of adapting during a match, of being flexible, is underestimated.”
