ALLARDYCE: I’LL BE YOUR SAVIOUR
New Sunderland boss vows to beat drop
THE last man to sit in Sam Allardyce’s new seat as Sunderland manager was convinced the club were going down. Dick Advocaat did not think much of the quality of his players, so he quit 10 days ago. Allardyce, though, has never been relegated from the Barclays Premier League. And, at yesterday’s unveiling he admitted his reputation is on the line.
The 60-year-old former West Ham, Newcastle and Blackburn manager, who signed a 20-month deal at the weekend, said: ‘I had to decide whether to take the gamble, it’s a risk business. Dick has his opinion and I have to prove that wrong, don’t I? I have got to be the man who comes in and, at some point down the line, is able to say, “Dick, you were wrong”.
‘I hope I am not saying, “Dick, you were right”, that’s for sure. If that happens I have made a bad decision.’
On the evidence of this season — Sunderland are winless and second from bottom after eight games — it is hard to disagree with Advocaat’s appraisal. But there was something convincing about Allardyce’s delivery yesterday. For example, he refused the invite to talk about building for the future.
‘I’m here to save them, I’m the troubleshooter,’ declared the man who undoubtedly gives Sunderland their best chance of survival. ‘The only priority I’ve got to focus on is saving it. Not the academy, not what happens in two years’ time, it’s got to be now and it’s got to happen as quickly as possible.
‘Because if this club wants to move forward it cannot have the financial devastation relegation will bring. It needs the new pot of money from the new television deal in the summer.’
Allardyce says it was owner Ellis Short who persuaded him to return to management after five months at his villa in Spain. Short, though, has annoyed previous bosses, either through interference — in the case of Roy Keane — or a lack of investment, which was Advocaat’s frustration. Keane said last week that Sunderland will never be successful with Short at the helm.
Allardyce disagrees, but did point to poor signings as the reason for the club’s season- on- season fight against relegation. ‘It has to be recruitment,’ he said. ‘You live or die on signings but it is the hardest job in football, finding a better player than you already have.
‘But I think I can have a good relationship with Ellis Short. I don’t know how that relationship has worked with other managers, but we can only move forward if we work together.’
The manager has at least won his first battle, for the head-coach title has been binned on his say-so.
‘I am a manager. I wear a suit on a match day. I organise the entire football structure at first-team level. So the manager title is right for me,’ he sounded triumphantly. For now, Allardyce is both manager and his own assistant. Neil McDonald was offered terms but is likely to remain as Blackpool boss. Southend’s Phil Brown is a strong contender for the No 2 role while Sportsmail understands Steve Round and Sammy Lee are also in the frame.
But there was an air of renewed excitement about the man whose last visit to the North East was during his final game in charge of West Ham at Newcastle in May. Newcastle, of course, was the club which sacked him in 2008 after a poisonous eight-month spell — ‘right club, wrong time’, he called calls that experience.
Allardyce, though, has always come back for more. ‘It’s a drug, it’s adrenalin, it’s an addiction,’ he said. ‘You can’t leave it alone. It’s what I’m best at. I think it is what I was put on the planet to do.’