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MARTIN SAMUEL: Scott Parker's Bournemouth sacking was not about results, performances or losing the dressing room - it was about blame... owner Maxim Demin's fragile ego doomed this marriage and the Cherries look braced to drop straight back down

In the end, it does not come down to results, or relegation, or performances, or any of the many factors we think get a manager sacked. It would not matter if Scott Parker had lost the dressing room, or could not even find it.

He was dismissed by Bournemouth owner Maxim Demin over blame. Demin didn’t fancy taking any, if Bournemouth went down. Not that he was greatly against going down. If anything, Bournemouth rather appear to have budgeted for it, as Norwich did. They see relegation as an occupational hazard, much as habitual criminal Norman Stanley Fletcher viewed prison in the ancient sitcom Porridge.