Big Sam in sticky spot at Toffees

Everton football manager Sam Allardyce this week had every reason to be furious after his bosses sent out a survey to their fans, calling on them to rate Big Sam’s performance on a scale of zero to 10.

The 63-year-old, who suffered the ignominy of being in charge of the England national team for just one match and 67 days after being caught up in a transfer rules scandal in 2016, hit back hard, insisting it was a big mistake from their director of marketing who was “not a great understander of football”.

To be fair the manager, who played over 500 matches as a professional in the Seventies and Eighties and has coached for more than two decades, actually hasn’t done too bad since taking over from the disastrous Ronald Koeman tenure as manager in November. Everton are ninth in the Premier League and they have picked up 27 points in 20 games while he has been in charge.

Not fantastic statistics, but not terrible ones, and certainly not bad enough results to warrant being thrown to the wolves.

At least Allardyce managed to keep his sense of humour this week, saying: “and don’t ask me how many marks I’d get out of 10, either,” before following it up with a “p*** off. Eleven!” when asked to rate himself.

While you have to feel for Allardyce, wouldn’t it be great if similar surveys were in use for some of our own coaches?

Former Springbok coach Allister Coetzee would never have been able to make it a full two years in the national hot seat if a survey was sent to the country’s die-hard rugby fans.

In his first year he won just four times in 12 Tests, including an embarrassing defeat to Italy, while record losses to New Zealand and Ireland in his second year saw him slump to an overall win ratio of just 44% in two years in charge.

The same applies for Steve Komphela at Kaizer Chiefs. Since his arrival at the club in 2015 Amakhosi have failed to win a single piece of silverware.

Each week the supporters call for his head and I’m sure they would score him very low if they were asked “if they had faith in him”. He surely must be on his way out if they don’t advance to the final of the Nedbank Cup this weekend.

And former Proteas cricket coach Eric Simons would not have survived after our dismal 2003 Cricket World Cup if fans were able to decide his fate.

Now if we could just send out similar surveys to rate our politicians...