SLY CLAIMS SHOW BIG SAM HAS A SHORT MEMORY

HAD Sam Allardyce wanted to take charge of Everton’s home game with West Ham on November 29 this season, it would have been very easy. He could have picked the team, gone into the dressing room before, after and at half-time to give the team talks, and sat on the touchline, as a manager does. He didn’t. He stayed in the directors’ box next to his new boss Farhad Moshiri. ‘I spoke to Sam for about 10 or 15 minutes about the season in general, but I picked the team,’ caretaker David Unsworth confirmed that night. Maybe Allardyce thought he hadn’t been around Everton long enough to take charge of such an important game; maybe he saw the two previous results — a 5-1 defeat at home by Atalanta and a 4-1 loss at Southampton — and thought he needed more time to assess. Either way, all’s well that ends well. Everton won 4-0 in Unsworth’s final game, propelling them up the table. The narrative having gone well, however, Allardyce now wishes to claim it as his own work. After the 3-1 win over Crystal Palace earlier this month he spoke of earning 17 points from eight home games — a run that included Unsworth’s final victory. After the 1-0 defeat at Watford on Saturday he was at it again. ‘We’ve done a good job up to now,’ Allardyce said. ‘You have to remember we were only two points off relegation when I arrived.’ Not really. Allardyce may have been announced when Everton were two points off relegation, but by the time he got hold of the team — after Unsworth’s last stand on November 29 — Everton were five points off the bottom three in 13th place. They got 15 points from 14 games before he arrived and 19 points from 14 games with Allardyce in charge; they were five points off the bottom three then and seven off it now; they have jumped from 13th to ninth. So Allardyce has improved them, just by not all that much — or not as much as he would like everyone to think. For someone who prides himself on being a straight-up, plain talker it seems a little bit, well, sly. Not to mention ungrateful to Unsworth.