Sam Allardyce: Epitome of why English football has lagged behind

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

Apologies absolutely your right. It has been about results in a lot of his situations. What I can't stomach is Sam judging the effectiveness of a style of play he has never ever attempted to implement in his own footballing teams. Further when a fair few of his teams have taken a good hiding off the back off possession based play., 5 weeks arsenal's manager has had to put that team together and the dickhead is digging him out on national TV. You would expect it from fans but from an aesthetically shit but experienced manager like him it was bang out of order. Apologies again though

Totally agree. Think it's a bit off for him to sit on Goals on Sunday, crticising others. Especially knowing the management game and
all it entails.

 

[Ghandi's Flip Flops]

It’s the British mentality. Britain as a nation is very proud of their traditions and heritage. Since the football has been invented by you there was always a consensus among British that football should be played the British way because it’s the only proper way. Strength, power and pace are the common traits that British always consider as a core of how to play football. That’s why for old coaches, the media and most of the fans it’s really hard to alter their thinking towards how the football should be played. This especially goes to so called dinosaurs of football (i.e. Allardyce, Hodgson, Warnock, etc.). They started their coaching careers in the era where muddy pitches, oversized kits, long balls and nasty tackles were something to be admired. That’s how their footballing attitude has shaped.

Not sure i would agree with this.

To understand people like BFS you need to go back and look at what happened in the mid 80's onwards while Bert Millichip & his cronies were in charge of the F.A.
Under his tenure (and against a backdrop of declining attendancies, football hooliganism & crumbling infrastructure etc) he commissioned a report/investigation/study looking into English football, and how to make it more entertaining & appealing. They went with flawed pre-conceived concept that more goals = more entertainment, so proceeded to look at a breakdown of how goals were scored (with a view to isolating a style of play/ tactics that would produce more goals per game that could be coached from grass routes level up) .

The problem was that when they analysed a large number of games from the top divisions in England, a startling statistic came to light; one in which the average number of passes made (once a team received possession) that led to a goal was 3 or less. Therefore they concluded that possession wasn't the key to scoring more goals, but putting/keeping the ball in the danger areas in & around the opponents box would. And hence the FA used this as their blueprint for supposedly more entertaining (and hopefully more successful) football.
This led to many teams employing the often see tactic of a big guy upfront nodding it down for a (usually) smaller, nippier strike partner (i.e. like the old Wimbledon, or Graham Sharpe & co at Everton).
It was from this concept that the English then began to consider the attributes of strength, power & pace more desirable & needed than passing accuracy or technical ability on the ball.
And this is the background in which BFS (and others from that era) developed/formed their basis of football strategy & tactics.

Ironically, whilst the F.A. went down this route (practically route one), European countries that were considered backwater/second rate teams (i.e. Denmark & the Scandanavian countries etc) decided to develop a blueprint for their future teams based on the succesful club teams of that time (i.e. Liverpool etc) and a possession/ technical type of football.

 

[aguerrrroooooooooooo]

New contender for silliest comment of 2018

It's got to be up there and that's accounting for the matchday threads

 

[kaz7]

Not read the whole thread but why this guy gets any airtime is beyond me,he is lauded like some football expert esp on talksport,he is a dinaseur (sp) a fraud who couldn't understand pep football if it slapped him in the gob every day and twice on sundays

 

[SpiritofBurnden]

Hull were almost dead and buried when Silva took over. He very nearly worked a miracle and kept them up.

Very nearly?

They should have appointed Allardyce.

He would have kept them up.

 

[mccity]

Some of you have crazy high definitions for the word 'good'.

And some of you are ignoring how much of a forward thinking and progressive manager Allardyce was back in his Bolton days.

The original quotes in no way indicate that he's a dinosaur. They merely indicate he's used to a reality whereby developing new systems isn't something you force through at the expense of a result.
And despite what some of you might think, short-terminism isn't a sin. Taking each game as it comes and playing boring, reactive and defensive football isn't a sin.

He might be stuck in the past, but he's not holding football back. There's more than one way to play football.

 

[aguerrrroooooooooooo]

Very nearly?

They should have appointed Allardyce.

He would have kept them up.

How do you know that?

 

[BlueHammer85]

Some of you have crazy high definitions for the word 'good'.

And some of you are ignoring how much of a forward thinking and progressive manager Allardyce was back in his Bolton days.

The original quotes in no way indicate that he's a dinosaur. They merely indicate he's used to a reality whereby developing new systems isn't something you force through at the expense of a result.
And despite what some of you might think, short-terminism isn't a sin. Taking each game as it comes and playing boring, reactive and defensive football isn't a sin.

He might be stuck in the past, but he's not holding football back. There's more than one way to play football.

Yep well said.

I found it at West Ham, no matter the football being played some fans just have an irrational hatred of him personally - this affects their judgement, so in the end they could never be ‘entertained’ ... swap the same man with an Italian and fancy name and their outlook on the match would be totally different. Many times under Allardyce we played very good football.

 

[Neville Kneville]

He's kept Bolton, Blackburn, West Ham, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Everton up from difficult positions.

He left Bolton in a UEFA Cup position, Everton in 8th and West Ham in the top half.

He also got two of those teams promoted.

Name someone who has had as much success at keeping teams in the Premier League as Sam Allardyce, on the sort of budgets he's working with.

No.

Because I can't name someone else who has made quite such a career out of narrowly avoiding complete failure.

Most people are in football aiming for the top. Sam & his mates, aim to reach & hang around near the bottom.

They either slither up to reach the bottom, from below, or scrabble around to try & avoid touching the bottom, from just above.

If I had to name the most similar manager to Sam, it would be Neil Warnock, but he tends to slither up, rather than scrabble above.

 

[Neville Kneville]

Safety?

Everton finished 8th, one place off a Europa League position!

How far do you see them progressing beyond that?

'Everton’s Premier League positions in the six seasons prior to David Moyes’ arrival as manager had been wretched.

Indeed in the decade before he was appointed Everton manager the Blues had managed one single top half finish, in 1996 under Joe Royle.

In the decade which followed his appointment he reversed that trend spectacularly.

The 17th place finish in 2004 was the only time his teams finished outside of the top 11.

From two skin of the teeth relegation escapes in 1994 and 1998 - and successive finishes of 15th, 17th, 14th, 13th, 16th and 15th - Moyes guided Everton to seventh, 17th, fourth, 11th, sixth, fifth, fifth, eighth, seventh, seventh, sixth and fifth.'

Well done Sam.