I've never understood why so many people dislike Allardyce as a manager. He's been superb pretty much everywhere he's been. Recently we've heard this "all he does is boot it" but that's nonsense. You couldn't get to where he did without a brain.
At Bolton he took them into Europe - that alone was a phenomenal achievement. To attract and manage the likes of Anelka, Campo, Djorkaeff, Hierro, Okocha took some doing and there's just no way they would've played for him if he was a clueless long-ball merchant.
He rightly managed his way to managing Newcastle and deserved the chance. He turned up there and realised the club and squad was garbage - and he was entirely correct. You can't play Pep-ball with crap players and pretty much as soon as they went they started the slide to relegation. He got West Ham up and kept them up, did well at Everton too.
I think he's a perceptive manager. If he went now to Everton, they would stay up. Same with Southampton or Bournemouth or Leeds. He correctly understands a teams problems and plays to their strengths - which is exactly what a good manager does.
Would I have him at City? No I wouldn't. However, if he'd have come to us around 2006 or whatever it was, I'd have been made up.