Big Sam’s future not so suite
SAM ALLARDYCE’S belief he was one of football’s untouchables was never more evident than at the start of his first week as England manager.
One night spent in the Sir Bobby Charlton suite at St George’s Park and he was already dreaming of possibilities. “Do you think there might be a Sam Allardyce Suite here one day? I hope so,” he ventured.
“You never know, do you? suppose it depends on how well do over the next two years.”
There will be no room with a view bearing his name, even though Allardyce departs his dream job, the role he openly craved for a decade, boasting a 100 per cent record. Played one, won one.
In the end, he could not even negotiate two months, let alone two years and a path to the World Cup in Russia in 2018. There is a thin line between self-confidence and arrogance and too often during Allardyce’s controversial career he has lurched from one into the other.
His downfall feels harsh, but it is purely of his own making and that fact will be seared on his psyche today: the reality that he has no one else to blame but himself, that what was supposed to be the highlight of his career has turned to dust inside 67 days. If the old adage about football I I REPORTS teams taking on the personality of their manager is true, then perhaps it would have been best for England if Allardyce had survived the furore that engulfed him after a newspaper’s undercover sting.
Maybe, in time, the national team would also have become opportunistic, not content with what they had and motivated, to put it bluntly, by a greed for more.
But then you examine further the allegations Allardyce wanted to cash in on his status as England manager to the tune of £400,000, that he was prepared to offer advice on circumventing the Football Association’s transfer rules relating to third-party ownership, and you see his boorish comments to what he thought were Far East businessmen, and other words come to mind. Words like naive, misguided, reckless, rude, insulting, grubby.
That is not the image Allardyce sold to the FA when interviewed in the summer for the chance to succeed Roy Hodgson – the man he mockingly, and tastelessly, dismisses as “Woy” on camera. Back then, he billed himself as an innovator and motivator supreme only for the mask to slip in front of a covert camera and a truer portrayal to be revealed.
There will be plenty who say ‘What’s new?’ Many will wonder why the FA can take a zero-tolerance approach now when they were prepared to cut through all of the innuendo and nudge, nudge, wink, wink insinuation that has followed Allardyce’s club career and appoint him in the first place. Surely they knew what they were getting?
In 2006, he was named by Panorama in a programme on transfer deals that claimed payments had been made from agents to his son, Craig, during Allardyce’s time at Bolton. Nothing was proved.
Allardyce needed to be squeaky clean and to dodge any controversy. Instead, he immersed himself at the (4-2-3-1) OSPINA BELLERIN MUSTAFI KOSCIELNY MONREAL G XHAKA CAZORLA WALCOTT OZIL IWOBI SANCHEZ (4-2-3-1) VACLIK LANG SUCHY BALANTA TRAORE T XHAKA ZUFFI BJARNASON DELGADO STEFFEN DOUMBIA REF: D Makkelie (Hol) TV: BT Sport 3 KICK-OFF: 7.45pm