Sam Allardyce - ‘It was like trying to build Empire State in a month’

[polpolpol]

The reason Allardyce is an utterly useless manager is that he had no idea how we were going to score goals. The simple fact is that the one skill a great manager has is to be able to abstract from any given team formation an understanding of how the players will link up and score goals. Great teams, teams like Arsenal or Manchester United don't just score a lot of goals, they score a lot of _the same_ goals. Think how many times you see Arsenal players get to the line at the edge of the box, another drops back, they pull it back and score; Wenger knows this will happen, he picks players who can link up like this. Think about how Ferguson picks wingers and full backs who act in concert. How many goals that were exactly the same did they score when Neville would overlap Beckham, take away the full back, and Beckham would cross it from deep to Van Nistelroy? The only goal we can replicate at the moment is the Owen near-post header and that's hardly a winning formula. You can't see how goals are going to happen from pro-zone stats; you might be able to make 70% completion on passes of 5-10 metres, but if a small percentage of these aren't creating chances it's utterly useless. You can kind of see how Bolton had some pretty simple strategies for scoring goals under Big Sam: high ball - knock down to onrushing midfielder, or wingers playing on opposite side to the one their foot preference would suggest cutting in to shoot, but for us he showed no ideas what so ever.

 

The reason Ameobi scored so many goals for us is that he is a player who has an instinctive ability to replicate previously favourable situations. Ameobi-Solano-Dyer on the right hand side of the pitch were great for us, because they knew where each other would be and could interlink. Their short passing was around the edge of the box was hot! They made chances. Bobby Robson was the master of picking teams in which he knew the players would link up. There were routines which were replicated all over the pitch. Shearer-Bellamy, the aforementioned triumvirate, Jenas-Dyer. Even Robert, hardly the most team-minded of players fit into the system because Bobby could see how we'd score goals with the kind of distribution he could produce with his left foot.

[ElDiablo]

Absolutely spot on pol. Our players are far too spread out and don't get close enough to each other to get in behind. Everything is played in front of the other team. For example when Milner recieves it out on the right he is so isolated it's untrue, there's never a simple ball on, if there is it's predictable and the player recieveing it is under pressure as the other team has read it. When you get more players closer it makes the opposition think and creates space for others to use. Take Keane's goal today, if Lennon hadn't have run into the box Onouha would have simply closed the space down between Keane and the goal and blocked the shot. But Lennon's (not even intelligent run, just him being there) presence put him in two minds, then bang, a simple 5 yard pass from Chimbonda and Keane has a free shot on goal. We don't do any of that.

[Teasy]

Jesus why can't this fat oaf just shut his idotic self promoting mouth?  He's a total and utter gobshite who blames everyone but himself for his failures.

[Robster]

Jesus why can't this fat oaf just shut his idotic self promoting mouth?  He's a total and utter gobshite who blames everyone but himself for his failures.

 

The man is a classless idiot. Hasnt an honest bone in his body and kind of confirms why he lost the players.

A good manager has to work with his staff and not just order about. The man just assumes he is right at every turn.

[Dr Venkman]

save it sam, you were responsible for bringing us smith, barton and rozenhal, and you gave nicky butt a new contract, these things alone make you a twat, regardless of the football we had to watch

[Guest mobiius]

I agree with the bit about KK being hopelessly out of his depth.

 

BSA should have been given a season. Sacking him and replacing him with KK has made us a laughing stock.

 

That sounds like something that wouldn't seem out of place in that T'baggers column in the N o T W. i say column cos every time we play he makes it his life's work to print bitter bile and derision about us. we are all entitled to our opinions and mine is BSA was the one totally out of his depth not KK. i didn't  celebrate when KK  was appointed but i am behind him till the final whistle of the season. Its our selves that make us the laughing stock we openly jeer managers at the drop of a media instigated hat for all and sundry to see.When there is nowt  for them to write about they sow a little seed, leave it a week and write something further and we nearly all believe it as if it came down from the mountain carved in stone. So before we start accusing KK of making us a laughing stock i think we should 1st look at ourselves. dynt

fyi- a T'bagger is someone who likes to dip his ballbag in another's mouth the same way you would -well you get the idea

[TRon]

The reason Allardyce is an utterly useless manager is that he had no idea how we were going to score goals. The simple fact is that the one skill a great manager has is to be able to abstract from any given team formation an understanding of how the players will link up and score goals. Great teams, teams like Arsenal or Manchester United don't just score a lot of goals, they score a lot of _the same_ goals. Think how many times you see Arsenal players get to the line at the edge of the box, another drops back, they pull it back and score; Wenger knows this will happen, he picks players who can link up like this. Think about how Ferguson picks wingers and full backs who act in concert. How many goals that were exactly the same did they score when Neville would overlap Beckham, take away the full back, and Beckham would cross it from deep to Van Nistelroy? The only goal we can replicate at the moment is the Owen near-post header and that's hardly a winning formula. You can't see how goals are going to happen from pro-zone stats; you might be able to make 70% completion on passes of 5-10 metres, but if a small percentage of these aren't creating chances it's utterly useless. You can kind of see how Bolton had some pretty simple strategies for scoring goals under Big Sam: high ball - knock down to onrushing midfielder, or wingers playing on opposite side to the one their foot preference would suggest cutting in to shoot, but for us he showed no ideas what so ever.

 

The reason Ameobi scored so many goals for us is that he is a player who has an instinctive ability to replicate previously favourable situations. Ameobi-Solano-Dyer on the right hand side of the pitch were great for us, because they knew where each other would be and could interlink. Their short passing was around the edge of the box was hot! They made chances. Bobby Robson was the master of picking teams in which he knew the players would link up. There were routines which were replicated all over the pitch. Shearer-Bellamy, the aforementioned triumvirate, Jenas-Dyer. Even Robert, hardly the most team-minded of players fit into the system because Bobby could see how we'd score goals with the kind of distribution he could produce with his left foot.

 

Outstanding post, agreed with almost every word. Someone said it earlier, how many supporters of leading clubs would be happy if he was appointed at their club? Man U? Spurs? Liverpool? Arsenal? I've just fed the figures into a computer and my opta stats indicate 98% of them would tell him to fu...

 

...er furget about it.

[Guest BooBoo]

I agree with the bit about KK being hopelessly out of his depth.

 

BSA should have been given a season. Sacking him and replacing him with KK has made us a laughing stock.

 

That sounds like something that wouldn't seem out of place in that T'baggers column in the N o T W. i say column cos every time we play he makes it his life's work to print bitter bile and derision about us. we are all entitled to our opinions and mine is BSA was the one totally out of his depth not KK. i didn't  celebrate when KK  was appointed but i am behind him till the final whistle of the season. Its our selves that make us the laughing stock we openly jeer managers at the drop of a media instigated hat for all and sundry to see.When there is nowt  for them to write about they sow a little seed, leave it a week and write something further and we nearly all believe it as if it came down from the mountain carved in stone. So before we start accusing KK of making us a laughing stock i think we should 1st look at ourselves. dynt

fyi- a T'bagger is someone who likes to dip his ballbag in another's mouth the same way you would -well you get the idea

 

Oooooh you bitch. I bet you could just crush a grape.

 

[Guest mobiius]

I agree with the bit about KK being hopelessly out of his depth.

 

BSA should have been given a season. Sacking him and replacing him with KK has made us a laughing stock.

 

That sounds like something that wouldn't seem out of place in that T'baggers column in the N o T W. i say column cos every time we play he makes it his life's work to print bitter bile and derision about us. we are all entitled to our opinions and mine is BSA was the one totally out of his depth not KK. i didn't  celebrate when KK  was appointed but i am behind him till the final whistle of the season. Its our selves that make us the laughing stock we openly jeer managers at the drop of a media instigated hat for all and sundry to see.When there is nowt  for them to write about they sow a little seed, leave it a week and write something further and we nearly all believe it as if it came down from the mountain carved in stone. So before we start accusing KK of making us a laughing stock i think we should 1st look at ourselves. dynt

fyi- a T'bagger is someone who likes to dip his ballbag in another's mouth the same way you would -well you get the idea

 

Oooooh you bitch. I bet you could just crush a grape.

 

[quayside]

The reason Allardyce is an utterly useless manager is that he had no idea how we were going to score goals. The simple fact is that the one skill a great manager has is to be able to abstract from any given team formation an understanding of how the players will link up and score goals. Great teams, teams like Arsenal or Manchester United don't just score a lot of goals, they score a lot of _the same_ goals. Think how many times you see Arsenal players get to the line at the edge of the box, another drops back, they pull it back and score; Wenger knows this will happen, he picks players who can link up like this. Think about how Ferguson picks wingers and full backs who act in concert. How many goals that were exactly the same did they score when Neville would overlap Beckham, take away the full back, and Beckham would cross it from deep to Van Nistelroy? The only goal we can replicate at the moment is the Owen near-post header and that's hardly a winning formula. You can't see how goals are going to happen from pro-zone stats; you might be able to make 70% completion on passes of 5-10 metres, but if a small percentage of these aren't creating chances it's utterly useless. You can kind of see how Bolton had some pretty simple strategies for scoring goals under Big Sam: high ball - knock down to onrushing midfielder, or wingers playing on opposite side to the one their foot preference would suggest cutting in to shoot, but for us he showed no ideas what so ever.

 

The reason Ameobi scored so many goals for us is that he is a player who has an instinctive ability to replicate previously favourable situations. Ameobi-Solano-Dyer on the right hand side of the pitch were great for us, because they knew where each other would be and could interlink. Their short passing was around the edge of the box was hot! They made chances. Bobby Robson was the master of picking teams in which he knew the players would link up. There were routines which were replicated all over the pitch. Shearer-Bellamy, the aforementioned triumvirate, Jenas-Dyer. Even Robert, hardly the most team-minded of players fit into the system because Bobby could see how we'd score goals with the kind of distribution he could produce with his left foot.

 

Outstanding post, agreed with almost every word. Someone said it earlier, how many supporters of leading clubs would be happy if he was appointed at their club? Man U? Spurs? Liverpool? Arsenal? I've just fed the figures into a computer and my opta stats indicate 98% of them would tell him to fu...

 

...er furget about it.

 

It was a great post.

 

But the real issue is not how crap Sam was, and yes he was very disappointing  - it's whether we've risked our Premiership status by replacing him with someone who is worse. Waiting for evidence that we haven't tbh, and will be very relieved when I see it.

[Guest Geordiecunny]

the statistics that mattered were derby 1-0 newcastle, newcastle 0-3 liverpool, newcastle 1-4 portsmouth, newcastle 2-2 derby etc. Not how many pointless yet succesful passes taylor made to barton etc. So much for a fair minded press "out of his depth". I'm never buying a news international paper again (not that i did), cunts.

Sour sam strikes again. Very selective about their time of asking for an interview with him, with a huge game like tomorrow coming up.

[fredbob]

Just out of interest, (and to play devils advocate) are people categorically saying that Allardyce WOULD of failed here no matter how long he had??

 

 

[Mick]

Just out of interest, (and to play devils advocate) are people categorically saying that Allardyce WOULD of failed here no matter how long he had??

 

 

 

Nobody could really say that with any degree of certainty, it also depends on what is meant by fail.

[johnnypd]

The reason Allardyce is an utterly useless manager is that he had no idea how we were going to score goals. The simple fact is that the one skill a great manager has is to be able to abstract from any given team formation an understanding of how the players will link up and score goals. Great teams, teams like Arsenal or Manchester United don't just score a lot of goals, they score a lot of _the same_ goals. Think how many times you see Arsenal players get to the line at the edge of the box, another drops back, they pull it back and score; Wenger knows this will happen, he picks players who can link up like this. Think about how Ferguson picks wingers and full backs who act in concert. How many goals that were exactly the same did they score when Neville would overlap Beckham, take away the full back, and Beckham would cross it from deep to Van Nistelroy? The only goal we can replicate at the moment is the Owen near-post header and that's hardly a winning formula. You can't see how goals are going to happen from pro-zone stats; you might be able to make 70% completion on passes of 5-10 metres, but if a small percentage of these aren't creating chances it's utterly useless. You can kind of see how Bolton had some pretty simple strategies for scoring goals under Big Sam: high ball - knock down to onrushing midfielder, or wingers playing on opposite side to the one their foot preference would suggest cutting in to shoot, but for us he showed no ideas what so ever.

 

The reason Ameobi scored so many goals for us is that he is a player who has an instinctive ability to replicate previously favourable situations. Ameobi-Solano-Dyer on the right hand side of the pitch were great for us, because they knew where each other would be and could interlink. Their short passing was around the edge of the box was hot! They made chances. Bobby Robson was the master of picking teams in which he knew the players would link up. There were routines which were replicated all over the pitch. Shearer-Bellamy, the aforementioned triumvirate, Jenas-Dyer. Even Robert, hardly the most team-minded of players fit into the system because Bobby could see how we'd score goals with the kind of distribution he could produce with his left foot.

 

top post. said it earlier in the season that allardyce didn't seem bothered about developing attacking strategies/trying to get the players to gel in the final third. i think he saw names like owen, martins, viduka on the team-sheet and thought they'd pop up with a goal out of nothing themselves which would be enough.

[dustynrg]

Just out of interest, (and to play devils advocate) are people categorically saying that Allardyce WOULD of failed here no matter how long he had??

 

 

 

I think the fact that the players were supposedly at such a low ebb by the time he left means he would have failed. Thank God he was sacked before he could build Bolton Mark 2 and bored us all to death in the process.

[ujpest doza]

let players that could win us games leave(iam sure theres a good stat on how many points solano has won us somewere)

 

Nobby wanted to leave.

Aye, but why did he want to leave? Don't believe for one minute it wasn't really because of TCA.

 

[Guest The Corner]

The journalist's (and not Allardyce's) comment "We will never know if Allardyce could have turned Newcastle into a consistent force, but we can surely agree that he would not have led them into their present pickle perilously close to the relegation zone." is a bit infuriating, but I can't find much fault with what Allardyce says himself. He was sacked too early, and deserved at least a full season to see what he could do.

 

He had laid the foundations for what he wanted the club to be like and i personally didnt want the club to end up an Allardyce regime.

 

Still dont see why he is so well thought of. He Turned an appauling team in to an average, mind numbingly boring team who could scrap results out, and thats what he wanted newcastle to be like

[Guest ChickenKiev]

Just out of interest, (and to play devils advocate) are people categorically saying that Allardyce WOULD of failed here no matter how long he had??

 

 

I think he would HAVE failed

He could have turned us into a mediocre side in maybe 4-5 seasons. But I class that as failure.

 

[Guest Alex20]

You can't build an empire state building with the shitty material you bought in Sam.

[Guest Christbane]

Tbh I read 'It was like trying to eat Empire State building in a month'

Woulda made more sense

[Tooj]

We got beat off a team with -50 goal difference with this knacker in charge.

[sicsfingeredmong]

 

From Big Sam

 

 

 

 

 

“Too direct? If those players had the ability to look at their ProZone stats instead of me shouting at them, they would have learnt more about their game than they’ve ever done. They would have learnt something about themselves.

 

 

 

 

No wonder the team produced a littany of poor 2nd half performances under Big Sam. It's hardly an exorcise in motivation, from a half-time teamtalk standpoint, to ram a truckload of I.T/ProZone psuedo-talk down the players' throats.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

Too true, I'd much rather have a motivator like Keegan telling them to go out and express themselves than Sam saying "try to get your short pass percentage up to 88%" 

[OzzieMandias]

It's hardly an exorcise in motivation

 

You'd need a Catholic priest for that.

[ChezGiven]

The Empire state has got a point, not sure Sam's ideas had any.