I woke up today in a great mood, I did what I do any morning, get up and kiss my life sized cardboard cut out of Thierry Henry and thank him for his goal against Manchester United in the 2000-2001 season. Make my coffee and scroll twitter to judge those inferior to me on their footballing knowledge. What I saw made me physically sick: “Sam Allardyce is the best English football manager we have”. How low can football get, I’ve heard some shocking statements in my time but this one takes the whole tin of biscuits (which big Sam probably ate).
Allardyce is the epitome of the English long ball manager stereotype. His hatred towards playing the beautiful game is evident with quotes like this: “all this tippy-tappy stuff – everybody keeps on going about the right way to play football – is all a load of bulls#%t”. His wheeling and dealing skills are also impressive, I mean this is the master mind behind signing Andy Carroll for £15 million… If that doesn’t tell you he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing then nothing will. To call Sam Allardyce the best English manager at the moment, is to let the whole world know that you class a player as good by their FIFA stats.
How many chances can a manager have before clubs realise they can’t cut it at this level. Rafa Benítez went from Real Madrid to Newcastle but Big Sam floats around from premier league club to premier league with no worries at all. Allardyce has never been poached from a club he was managing in the Premiership, with most ending by mutual consent and sackings. This isn’t even including his 67-day tenure as England manager. Which, lets face it, would end like any England manager, in disgrace and disaster.
While on the topic of English football managers, it’s clear to see we have a dire, dire situation, especially when it’s a choice between ‘Woy Wodgson’ and everyone’s school PE teacher Eddie Howe for the number one spot. Five of the bottom 7 clubs have an English manager with the other two being Mark Hughes (Welsh) and David Moyes (Scottish). Between them they have a total of zero major titles, if that doesn’t say we have an epidemic, nothing will.
They say that Big Sam travels from club to club, not for the money or the fame, but to try fill that giant hole of emptiness in his heart… Unfortunately, you’re not going to find it at Everton but you might find love in a hopeless place such as Marbella.