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Sam Allardyce


Ritchie

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  • 9 months later...

I do feel bad they stuck with him....

 

 

 

Sam Allardyce: a good but stubborn manager who must secure promotion for West Ham

When you have failed to win trophies for as long as Newcastle United and West Ham, there is perhaps an emphasis on style over substance.

Perhaps Sam Allardyce would seem less like a round peg in a square hole if was not so keen to tell everyone is stupid.

 

Allardyce is a manager who believes winning is all that counts; that there are no points awarded for artistic impression, flair or entertainment value.

 

He does not want plaudits for the way his teams play the game, he wants points and he is not afraid to tell people just that – repeatedly.

 

It is a mantra that has served him well at clubs like Bolton and Blackburn, the just glad to be among the elite sides that need to make the most of limited resources and do what they can to level the playing field.

 

The picture was rather different at Newcastle and it is a vista largely shared at West Ham.

 

These are clubs who have a tradition of playing with panache – clubs where fans have pride in the manner in which their team play as a substitute for their persistent failure to live up to other, grander expectations.

 

Allardyce claims he was never given a fair chance at Newcastle and, to an extent, he is right. He was Freddie Shepherd’s final managerial appointment just months before Mike Ashley booted the former chairman out in the summer of 2007.

 

Managers who are not appointed by the owner are always running up hill and Newcastle were mid-table in the Premier League when he was sacked just eight months after he had left Bolton to accept the “big job at a big club” he craved.

 

Newcastle had started well, enjoying their best start to a Premier League season in more than a decade, but when results dipped, Allardyce’s football philosophy became the issue.

 

Significantly, having worked for local paper The Journal during Allardyce’s brief Tyneside tenure, few moaned about his appointment, in fact he was largely welcomed.

 

Newcastle fans had grown tired of the constant near-misses and their flaky reputation. They had tried the Entertainers route under Kevin Keegan and Sir Bobby Robson and fallen short of the standards needed to actually put a silver pot in a dusty trophy cabinet.

 

Allardyce was perceived as a manager who would introduce a steely streak, a manager who would bring winning football and if that meant scrappy 1-0 victories, a new emphasis on defence and set-pieces, it was a price worth paying.

 

Allardyce, though, was too keen to hammer home the point, taking a slightly mocking tone whenever conversation moved towards reflecting on the club’s recent flirts with triumph and the Keegan era in particular.

 

A mistake in a part of the world where Keegan was still hero worshipped and the 1995/6 season run-in meltdown was still lauded, if only for the fact the ride had been an exhilarating experience for a generation of supporters who remembered the dark days.

 

Allardyce implied Newcastle had nothing to be proud of because they had actually failed to win the league. They were losers in the end.

 

True, but he failed to appreciate the context. Newcastle fans had never expected to win the league that season. Three years earlier they had believed they were going to be relegated to the third tier of English football, the culmination of decades of mismanagement and failure.

 

Keegan had completely transformed the football landscape and helped give an entire city its self-esteem back in the process after the dire post-industrial eighties.

 

Allardyce did not stop there. Annoyed by what he perceived as negative reporting of his team’s performances, Allardyce told reporters they were “miserable” because they were stuck in the North-East and wanted to be where the real action was in London or Manchester.

 

Maybe some did, but most were, like the fans most of them used to be, loved the region they called home. North-East people do not have an inferiority complex when it comes to where they live, they are smug about it.

 

It all helped to create an atmosphere where people were waiting for Allardyce to fail and as soon as results dropped, the criticism focused on the manner in which they were achieved.

 

Allardyce responded with typical bullishness. He knew best, he understood the game and he had the success to back it up.

 

The bullet came at the start of January after four league games without a win and an ugly 0-0 draw at Championship side Stoke City in the FA Cup.

 

But it was a 4-1 home defeat to Portsmouth at the start of November, less than four months into his first season, that sowed the seeds of doubt and discontent. Newcastle were ripped to shreds despite all the talk of defence comes first.

 

The players were more interested on what they could do with the ball than worrying about stopping the opposition having it. Allardyce’s approach insisted that nullifying the opposition was always the first priority and it fuelled a negative approach.

 

Ashley, seeking a tonic to the drabness, added insult to Allardyce’s badly-injured ego, he lured Keegan out of retirement to replace him.

 

Allardyce is a good manager, but he is stubborn and highly opinionated. At West Ham, he is suffering many of the same problems, but he is either unable or unwilling to change his philosophy just to pander to an increasingly restless crowd.

 

Ultimately, Allardyce was brought in to do a job – protect the business by making sure of promotion back to the Premier League at the first attempt.

 

He may yet do that and it is premature to believe Allardyce is a busted flush. Go up and he will be vindicated in everything he has done. Fail and he’ll surely be swelling the ranks of the unemployed.

 

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I love it when he goes on about people not liking him because he keeps beating them when in actual fact he never sets his teams up to beat anyone he always plays for a nil nil draw and if the other team score first he's cattled.

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Would be funny to see West Ham miss out on automatic promotion. Would be even funnier if they fuck up in the playoffs.

 

All that money.........just wasted!

 

I think they'd be fucked if that was the case.

 

Their wage bill must be gigantic for that league.

 

I do wonder if the Porn Kings would sustain it themselves in the event of non-promotion.

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Hate the fat turdd

 

It is one thing to have an ego when you are a top manager (Mourinho) BUT when you are shite like him I don't understand where the arrogance comes from

 

Would be brilliant if they failed to get promoted, especially if it means him losing out to Hughton

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Would be funny to see West Ham miss out on automatic promotion. Would be even funnier if they f*** up in the playoffs.

 

All that money.........just wasted!

 

 

To Chris Hughton too.

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Would be funny to see West Ham miss out on automatic promotion. Would be even funnier if they f*** up in the playoffs.

 

All that money.........just wasted!

 

 

To Chris Hughton too.

 

Just about the icing on the cake.

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I think the following chants suggested in a West Ham forum show what they think of Allardyce and his style of football.

 

we come every week

we come every week

must be deluded

we come every week

 

He's tactics are great

he's tactics are great

big Sam for England

he's tactics are great.

 

It's quarter to four,

it's quarter to four,

I'm f-ucking bored s-hitless,

it's quarter to four

 

he's a short-sighted toad

he's a short-sighted toad

he thinks we play football

or maybe he's just a (unt (oops!!) ...work needed

 

we play on the floor

we play on the floor

we're west ham united

we play on the floor

 

My neck really hurts

My neck really hurts

Fu(k this hoofball

My neck really hurts

 

i wear a neck brace

manager says we play ace

(unts sponsored by fray bentos

just look at his face

 

We play shlt and he lies

We play shlt and he liiiies

Go manage Wigan

They do better pies

 

it's good in row z

see it hoofed on to the taaaaall laaaaads heeeead

width is extinct now

we all shake our heads

 

he does like a pie

one must have hit him right iiiiiiiin theeeeeeee eeeeeeeye

says we're playing good football

just fu(k off and ... (DOH)

 

he's round not square

he likes his football in the air

toad faced c.unt , toad faced c.unt

 

O fu(kin eck

Its off the deck

O fu(kin eck

I've broken my neck

 

We're launching the ball,

we're launching the ball

But Maynard and Baldock

Aint that fu(king tall.

 

We don't like your style,

your hoofball is vile.

We pass on the deck,

it's good for your neck.

We are West Ham,

we play on the floor,

please Fu(k off in May,

whatever the score.

You Fat kunt,

You Fat kunt,

You Fat kunt

 

They've gone in front,

bring a striker on u kunt

Can't take anymore,

u play for a draw

 

 

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