Sam Allardyce is about to be appointed England manager.
And while it might seem to you that this is a new low for the England
football team or that perhaps the Football Association are simply trying
to lower fans’ expectations, that might not actually be the case.
Here are some sort of compellingish reasons why it might not be as bad as all that maybe.
1. Longitivity
Guys, Allardyce must be good because he’s
hung around a long time. Only Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger and Harry
Redknapp have been in charge for more Premier League games. True, he’s
never won anything, and true, he’s not the most fashionable candidate
out there, but so what? There is precedent for this kind of thing and we
think you’re gonna be quietly impressed. There is another man who hung around with
the big boys and girls for long enough, not doing anything of note,
refusing to fit in before eventually, surprisingly getting the top job.
His name is Jeremy Corbyn, and that worked out pretty damn well.
2. Forward-yhinking methods
This is what people say about Big Sam,
isn’t it? Oh, he may seem unsophisticated but his methods are actually
very forward thinking. Revolutionary even. So have a little search
around and literally the only examples of these methods you will find
are Prozone stats and yoga.
And it’s with Prozone that Allardyce deserves a heck of a lot of credit.
He was very early on the Prozone train, using the kind of stats to help
develop his side’s style of play that are now commonplace among Premier
League teams. In fact, there’s only really one manager of note who got
there before him, and that’s the man who helped develop the system,
Steve McClaren, who went on to have notable success as boss of FC Twente
in Holland. So that tells you all you need to know.
3.The football he plays isn't as bad as you think
You probably think that Allardyce’s teams play terrible football, but
it’s actually not true. He’s guided by the players he has at his
disposal. That’s why at first Bolton played horrible football and then
when they got people like Youri Djorkaeff and Jay-Jay Okacha in the team
it was marginally less horrible.
He’s really developed his style in recent years, too. Just look at the
exciting football West Ham used to play under Allardyce, before Slaven
Bilic went and messed up all his good work. West Ham fans must be
furious about that.
4. He gets results
His teams might not play the best football, but by god, he gets results.
Behold, for example, his fearsome win percentage: of the 467 games he’s
managed in the Premier League, his side have won a whopping 33.6%.
People might try and throw this stat at you, but don’t be fooled. He has
never won more Premier League matches than he’s lost at any club he has
managed. This is slightly sneaky – at Bolton he actually won 80 and
lost 80, so that’s almost the same.
5. He probably won't actually put Kevin N olan in yhe team
Will he? No. He couldn’t. Could he? Surely not.
But he’ll almost certainly make him assistant manager or something.
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