New England manager: Why Big Sam Allardyce is the wrong man for the job
Sunderland coach does not provide the answers to the problems facing national side in wake of a disastrous Euro 2016
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Your support makes all the difference.It’s not often a team is booed off by its own supporters after earning a victory in the cut-throat Premier League. Manchester United, maybe. Manchester City, Chelsea perhaps. At clubs where vast wages are paid and huge fees splashed on players – victories are expected, but winning with style is also demanded.
At mid-table clubs a win is a win – to use football parlance – and is celebrated. At clubs fighting relegation a victory is gold dust and is celebrated all the more. Which makes the tale of Sam Allardyce at West Ham one that should make the FA stop and take stock as it considers appointing the old Boltonian the new England manager.
In March 2014, Allardyce’s West Ham were fighting to avoid relegation so you would think beating Hull City, albeit a 10-man Hull City, 2-1 at Upton Park would have been a source of jubilation for the supporters. Not so. The performance was so dire, so guileless, that the players were booed from the field at half-time, despite being 1-0 up, and at full-time, despite winning.
As The Independent football writer Jack Pitt-Brooke described it at the time: “this performance from West Ham was so poor, so lacking in everything fans want from their team, that its towering badness managed to overshadow the fact of the three vital points. [The booing] was unusual but it was not surprising… for 70 minutes West Ham played against 10 men and yet they were out-manoeuvred by a far more imaginative and enterprising Hull City team.”
At the booing, Allardyce cupped a hand to his ear in disbelief. ““At that particular time it was about winning,” he would later explain. “It didn't matter how we won as long as we won - and we did win.”
This is Allardyce’s mantra. We all want England to win. Well, those of us who are not Welsh do. But is the win-at-all-costs, no matter what quality of football we play, really what we want from the next England manager? Shouldn’t we be aiming somewhat higher given the players we have at our disposal?
No one is disputing that Allardyce is an experienced and efficient manager at certain levels of the game. He will bang heads together, holler from the touchline, make players remove their headphones – as if this is all that is holding them back. No more Kanye West doesn’t make Kane best.
Allardyce is a fire-fighter not a lighter of fires as he showed at Sunderland last season. He made them hard to beat, packed the team with muscle. But last season in terms of keep ball only West Bromwich Albion retained it for less time per 90 minutes. They were happy to cede possession.
Portugal were too and they won Euro 2016. But that success was more by luck than design otherwise they would have been alongside the pre-tournament favourites. But they weren’t, the bookies know what they are doing. Teams that are able to keep the ball, are inventive and imaginative, had the shortest odds. Teams such as France, Germany and Spain.
Are England really that far behind these three in terms of ability of our players? Well, yes at the moment – because Roy Hodgson had no gameplan, no tactical formation. Allardyce would be an improvement on Hodgson but Morrisons is better than Iceland although neither are Waitrose (actually, better not to mention Iceland again).
England needn’t be so limited in their ambitions. That is why they need a manager who will get the best out of players in an attacking sense. They have footballers who are very capable and skilful: Raheem Sterling, Jamie Vardy, Daniel Sturridge, Dele Alli, Jack Wilshere.
It’s what the FA wants too unless it has ripped up its much-heralded DNA blueprint which espoused the virtues of possession.
Sitting back and defending deep shouldn’t be England’s footballing philosophy. It should be using the ball quickly and efficiently and breaking teams down. ‘Big Sam’ has never had the chance to work at a Champions League club and to prove he can work with these players and bring the best out of them. Maybe that is unfair, but it is fact.
There was little on Allardyce’s CV 10 years ago to persuade the FA that he was the man to bring that to the fore and there is little now.
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