ALLARDYCE FINALLY GETS HIS CHANCE
ONLY yesterday the men leading the search for the next England manager said the Football Association was “not after a short-term mercenary” and Sam Allardyce could certainly never be accused of that.
England manager is the job Allardyce has craved for more than 10 years, his desire to succeed Sven Goran Eriksson back in 2006 going way beyond the PowerPoint presentation he was unable to deliver because the FA did not have the foresight to provide such basic equipment for their interviewees.
Even before that interview, Allardyce was doing all he could to become the man in charge of the national football team, what he regarded, as an Englishman, as his national team.
His efforts extended to a meal with the football correspondents of the various national newspapers, during which Allardyce was keen to convince his audience that his rather unglamorous position as the manager of Bolton Wanderers should not count against him at a time when the FA had designs on World Cup winners such as Luiz Felipe Scolari.
That night in Manchester, Allardyce proved himself not just a fine raconteur, but a man with conviction; with confidence in his beliefs and his view on the footballers available to England.
At the time Eriksson was still struggling to find a permanent replacement for David Seaman in goal, with Paul Robinson the man in possession but far from secure.
Allardyce floated the idea of Nigel Martyn, then at Everton, something of a left-field choice in the view of many, but unquestionably a man in form.
Indeed it was refreshing to hear an English manager even consider such a bold move and was far from ridiculous, despite Martyn being 39 at the time.
When Martyn announced his retirement from football in June 2006 because of a serious ankle injury, David Moyes declared him his “greatest ever signing”.
Martyn’s time might have passed, but at 61 Allardyce’s has finally arrived, with the FA expected to make an official approach to Sunderland in the first step towards appointing him as Roy Hodgson’s replacement.
It would suggest the interview Allardyce gave last week at the Cheshire home of David Gill, the former Manchester United chief executive now serving as an FA vice-chairman, went rather better than the first one.
But then the three-man selection panel, made up of Gill, FA chief executive Martin Glenn and technical director Dan Ashworth, have rightly concluded that Allardyce is exactly what England need.
They need someone with the experience, intelligence and skill not just to rebuild the shattered confidence of an England side eliminated from their last major competition by Iceland, but to embrace the vision Ashworth and his team at St George’s Park have for the future of the national game.
Allardyce is an innovator, for sure, but more than that he has proved himself someone who can evolve and respond to any challenge.
He takes pride in that, just as he takes pride in the fact that he is something of a master at drawing the best from the players he has at his disposal, and that in his time as a manager he has never been relegated – his latest escape act at the Stadium of Light providing yet more evidence of his ability.
It has not always been football that is pleasing to the eye, and José Mourinho once accused Allardyce’s West Ham United side of playing a style from “the 19th century” to secure a precious point at Stamford Bridge.
But Mourinho failed to recognise Allardyce’s success in coming up with a tactical plan that worked.
Allardyce reflected on that particular criticism over pie and mash near Upton Park in December 2014.
“Look, the way we played that day wasn’t very adventurous,” he admitted.
“But I was staring down the barrel of a gun. I had to do what I had to do to save my position.
“I was under increasing pressure and my team needed a result. That day a draw was as good as a win and it proved the turning point of our season.
“It lifted the whole confidence of my team and in the end we finished 13th.”
What wouldn’t England’s supporters have given for such an approach against Iceland?
The best managers do indeed evolve, as Alex Ferguson at Manchester United demonstrated better than anyone.
Allardyce, although he never had the resources available to Ferguson at Old Trafford, is being offered the England job now because he, too, has continued to grow and develop.
“Many of the managers of my era, managers who were working when I came into the Premier League, are not there any more,” Allardyce observed during that interview in 2014.
“I’ve seen managers be hugely successful but keep relying on the same methods, and because they didn’t evolve they didn’t last perhaps as long as they should have done,” he said.
“I take great satisfaction from the way I’ve managed to evolve. I’ve changed styles, changed methods. I’ve always had an open mind, always been prepared to listen.”
At the time he said he was fascinated by what could be learnt from the data collected on players when they played and trained, and spoke of putting the data into some kind of algorithm.
Funny, then, that it was only before this summer’s European Championship that the FA started to use the same data collected on England’s players.
During that 2014 interview Allardyce stressed, once again, a desire to one day manage England and apply all he has learnt.
Club management, he said, was “still about finding the best players”. But management, at any level, was “about getting the best out of the players once you have them, about creating an environment that allows them to be the best they can be”.
It is, in essence, what international management is all about. – Daily Mail