Day of high farce but night of joy at Goodison

SAM ALLARDYCE’S remarkable entrance at Goodison came after a day of high farce. In the morning, a section of the club’s supporters were fuming, though there was little dissent as the goals flew past West Ham goalkeeper Joe Hart last night. The 63-year-old’s advisers agreed an 18-month deal, worth £6million per year, in London on Tuesday and Allardyce arrived back from holiday in Dubai yesterday to meet his new squad at the club’s training base. However, fans reacted angrily to news that ex-Liverpool stalwart Sammy Lee is on his coaching staff. Things got worse when major shareholder Farhad Moshiri chose to reveal that business had been concluded with the former England boss through broadcaster Jim White on Twitter. Everton’s communications department were unaware of the development and unable to publish anything on their website. The situation was exacerbated when bookmaker Paddy Power released quotes from Allardyce two weeks ago in which he dissected the team’s problems. In a further embarrassment, Sport Pesa — Everton’s official shirt sponsors — sent out a mocking Tweet featuring a video clip of Allardyce dancing in Marbella 16 months ago with the words ‘talk about finding love in a hopeless place’. It was later deleted. Everton then issued a holding Tweet to say Allardyce was expected at the training ground for talks but, even though contractual matters had long since been concluded, no official announcement arrived yesterday. Allardyce eventually arrived at the training ground at 3pm, where he spoke to the players during their pre-match meal ahead of the game with West Ham. He later headed for Goodison Park where the reception he received from the small crowd who had congregated was muted. Moshiri and Allardyce watched the game from the directors’ box. His first official fixture in charge will be Saturday’s home clash with Huddersfield. Moshiri is adamant, after waiting 37 days to find Ronald Koeman’s successor, that Allardyce will be a ‘strong leader who will give us stability’ and vowed to give him ‘all the support he wants’. The immediate aim is for Allardyce, who first held talks with Moshiri on November 5, to repeat the trick he performed at Sunderland and Crystal Palace and keep Everton in the Premier League. Writing on paddypower.com, Allardyce said: ‘The players’ loss of belief in themselves means the first thing the new manager needs to do is re-instil that confidence and morale in them again. ‘When a player plays with confidence, that’s when he’s playing to the best of his ability. At the minute, I can’t see that with that set of Everton players. It’s gone.’