Having once claimed he’d have more luck getting work at a glamour club if he had a continental surname, Sam Allardyce now has the biggest management job there is in English football.
Tasked with getting the Three Lions back on track following Roy Hodgson’s embarrassing reign and that roundly humiliating exit to Iceland at the recent European Championships, his appointment hasn't been without its detractors.
Some may be put off by his no-nonsense demeanour, others irked by his penchant for lumping it forward to the big man, but naysayers be damned, as we feel there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful about an Allardyce command. Here are ten of them.
England will know their limits
"All this tippy-tappy stuff - everybody keeps on going about the right way to play football - is all a load of bollocks sometimes,” said Allardyce last year after his West Ham side thrashed Hull 3-0. And he’s right – why the hell are we playing to every other technically superior country’s strength when we should be playing to ours? All you need is Andy Carroll up front, Joey Barton running around midfield biting ankles like a springer spaniel with rabies and John Stones scolded in training every time he has the audacity to pass it out from the back and we'll win the World Cup in no time. Job done.
He's got a massive footballing brain
Allardyce's head measures 26 inches in height and 23 inches around. It's a big one all right, leaving us in no doubt of the power behind his success and his unmatched reading of the game: a giant brain.
When’s the last time an England boss really got into the mind of an opposition coach, making them question their game plan as well as their own sanity? This is what big crunch tournament matches are calling for - how else are we going to get lowly Eastern European outfits to stop parking the bus and come out and attack, allowing us to counter and nick the odd goal? Big Sam knows. A wind-up merchant of the highest order, his previous victims include Rafa Benitez and Louis Van Gaal, and we know who’s had the last laugh there.
He won’t make Harry Kane take corners
He will send the goalkeeper up though.
He *gets* high-end European fashion?
We all know England’s real problem in France. For all Hodgson’s multilingual ability, his grandad-turning-up-for-five-a-side, style was lacking a certain je ne sais quoi. Not Allardyce though. Pictured leaving the house of FA chief David Gill yesterday sporting a Louis Vuitton man bag, the fetching accessory may just have swung it. Is the job in the bag? Time will tell.
He knows the importance of experience
Expectations may have been low over England’s Euro 2016 campaign but optimism was quietly high over a batch of youngsters let loose from the shackles the previous ‘golden generation’. Shame then, that, as in the 2014 World Cup, they crumbled, imploded, let us down. What was needed as the likes of Raheem Sterling looked like a deer in headlights was a bit of big game nous. Well known for picking players with plenty of experience, who’s to say he won’t bring Jermain Defoe back to the fold after getting so much out of him last year for Sunderland? We’re not saying he’s going to fast-track British passports for Ivan Campo and Jay Jay Okocha anytime soon but watch this space...
He’s already masterminded England to victory
Specifically a Soccer Aid game this summer. It may also come as no surprise that Jermain Defoe fired the unofficial Three Lions to victory either.
He’s performed bigger miracles
Given the last coach left them halfway through the campaign claiming they were doomed, and their best player at the start of last season is now in jail, black cats proved anything but unlucky as Allardyce’s coarse, clammy hands guided Sunderland to another season of Premier League football. Saving Sunderland from the drop when it seemed near impossible was arguably his biggest achievement to date, so what’s he got to lose?
He'll have better ball control than the last coach
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