Miron Muslic

Muslic set to renew acquaintances with Burnley's Parker

It is fairly statistically unlikely that, in his third game in charge of Argyle, Miron Muslic would come against someone in the opposite dugout that he has met before. However, that is exactly what will happen on Wednesday night.  

When Argyle face Burnley at Home Park, Scott Parker will lead his team to Devon, and will meet someone with whom he once shared a city, and even a ground.  

When Parker was briefly in charge of Club Brugge, their city neighbours and stadium co-inhabitants Cercle were managed by Muslic, and now the two will renew acquaintances.  

They will do so quite far apart in many respects, this time. Geographically, it is a long midweek trek for the Clarets; league table-wise, bottom side Argyle are hosting third-place Burnley; and the clubs are at the opposite end of the ‘goals conceded’ charts too. With 55 goals conceded, Argyle’s record is the worst in the top four leagues. Burnley’s is the best – they have let in just nine, in 27 games.  

Game very much on for Argyle, then, but Muslic – who drew his previous encounter against Parker – seems to be a man who relishes a challenge.  

“[Burnley have] one of the best defensive records in England and throughout Europe, one of the best statistically defensive structures. This is a massive, massive challenge for us. 

“We have to believe that we can attack. We have to believe that we can go outside and create goalscoring opportunities and moments of urgency for Burnley to defend.  

“We have to also, on the other side, be very structured when we are attacking, so we are not caught in a possible transition, because this is also one of the strong parts of Burnley.  

“Nothing will be easy, but that's also the challenge we have to face. 

“That's the magic of football, that you have always a chance as an underdog. If you purely see the ranking, the table, the stats and everything, then we are the underdog. But we want to be a brave underdog. We want to take advantage of our situation, because nobody is actually believing in us - but we do.  

“I think it is the right ingredients to approach a game like this. If you don't believe, it's better to stay at home.  

“I'm very much looking forward to seeing [Scott Parker] again. We met each other one-and-a-half years ago and we played a derby. He was the manager of Club Brugge; I was the manager of Cercle Brugge. We had a talk before the game, and Scott Parker is and was a true gentleman. 

“We had a very competitive fight in a derby in front of 30,000. It was a fantastic game, attack-minded from both sides. I think it was a very spectacular 2-2, a good draw.   

“He had a clear style of play and clear pattern, and now when I rewatched Burnley, you see this dominance in possession, preparing the attacks, but also not hesitating to go direct and to go straight to the number nine if they are under pressure. 

“It's a very, very strong team and it's a very, very well coached team.” 

Argyle’s squad is likely to look similar to the side that played Queens Park Rangers on Saturday, meaning none of the injured contingent have been passed fit to play. Indeed, there is bad news on Brendan Galloway, who may have been seen for the last time this season.  

“It’s very bad news on Brendan,” said Miron. “He will be out for the rest of the season, he will even need a surgery. That hurts, because on one side, he could help us purely tactically on the pitch because he's a good centre-back. But, on the other side, we're also going to miss his character inside the locker room, his mentality, his attitude. 

“These are very, very important things right now in our situation. Brendan will be out. We still have Kornel [Szucs] out, for the next seven to ten days. Conor [Hazard] is not 100 percent fit, so we have a lot of players injured or not fully available. We only have two centre-backs, Julio [Pleguezuelo] and Victor [Palsson], available. 

“That's the situation, and we have to take the best out of it because we still have some possibilities inside of a squad and inside of a frame, and we need to maximize this.  

“On the other side, we also have a lot of players now playing almost every single game, like our captain, Adam [Randell]. There, we need to be sensitive, and give him the opportunity to protect him in one game. Otherwise, he will also maybe be out for a couple of weeks due to an overload.  

“The good thing about January, the transfer window is open for us and we are looking for reinforcements to support our current squad. 

“We are working on that; we have to be patient. It's not about just signing a guy, or signing a new player, we have to make sure that this guy fits into the locker room, and he realises also the situation we are in. We need fighters.   

“As soon as February is in front of us, and January is behind us, we will have our squad defined, so we know where we are and from there on we can move fully.”