Good Comment Piece Re: Big Sam

[Guest alex]

Apologies if this has already been posted but I thought this was a good piece by the excellent Hugh McIlvanney (he actually likes us too, which helps):

 

Big Sam suffers but not at bank

 

For several reasons, my heart found it easy to remain unwrung at the sight of Sam Allardyce’s removal from Newcastle United. Sympathy for any manager cut adrift by a major football club these days is, of course, automatically limited, since he is likely to be floating on a raft of banknotes towards a secure financial future. Allardyce’s severance package is estimated to be as much as £6m, a sum that should make more bearable his sense of injustice at finding himself unwanted after only 24 matches in charge of the perennial underachievers of the northeast. And there seems to me no cause for grieving over the effect on his pride and his reputation, since both were probably in need of adjustment.

 

He deserved credit for consistently giving Bolton Wanderers respectable placings in the Premier League during nearly eight years at the Reebok stadium but the record was achieved with football that was pragmatic bordering on primitive. It represented an acceptable ends-justifying-the-means formula for Bolton but it hardly warranted the increasing signs from Allardyce of a conviction that his methods (incorporating a huge backroom staff and heavy reliance on the appliance of science) would put him ahead of the game wherever he managed.

 

There was a confident swagger about his candidacy for the England job after the departure of Sven-Göran Eriksson and, once he and the egregious Freddy Shepherd had somehow convinced themselves he was the right man to create a miraculous revival at St James’ Park, he rode into Newcastle last May on a small gale of self-belief. He even believed himself capable of rescuing the undoubted talent of Joey Barton from the swamp of the player’s recidivist delinquency. It was perhaps the worst of a clutch of mistakes that added to the horrors of a nightmare assignment.

 

Maybe now Big Sam and everybody else in football will have a clearer perspective about his abilities and where they might best be deployed.

[Barney 0]

Like every manager who leaves here, his career will go downhill.

 

Spot on about the massive pay-off too. Makes me respect Pearce all the more for insisting on not having one in his contract at Citeh.

[RlCO 0]

Sam didn't have to leave Bolton to come here, he risked his financial future to do it so a pay-off is more tha nreasonably in my mind, although obvioulsy massively over-valued. Pearce was as much a risk for city as city was for him, so a pay off is less deserved in that case.

[Happy Face 29]

Sam didn't have to leave Bolton to come here, he risked his financial future to do it so a pay-off is more tha nreasonably in my mind, although obvioulsy massively over-valued. Pearce was as much a risk for city as city was for him, so a pay off is less deserved in that case.

 

 

He left Bolton ages before the Toon job was even touted.

[RlCO 0]

Sam didn't have to leave Bolton to come here, he risked his financial future to do it so a pay-off is more tha nreasonably in my mind, although obvioulsy massively over-valued. Pearce was as much a risk for city as city was for him, so a pay off is less deserved in that case.

 

 

He left Bolton ages before the Toon job was even touted.

 

Aye so he did. Fucking memory like a Fish.

[manc-mag 1]

Apologies if this has already been posted but I thought this was a good piece by the excellent Hugh McIlvanney (he actually likes us too, which helps):

 

Big Sam suffers but not at bank

 

For several reasons, my heart found it easy to remain unwrung at the sight of Sam Allardyce’s removal from Newcastle United. Sympathy for any manager cut adrift by a major football club these days is, of course, automatically limited, since he is likely to be floating on a raft of banknotes towards a secure financial future. Allardyce’s severance package is estimated to be as much as £6m, a sum that should make more bearable his sense of injustice at finding himself unwanted after only 24 matches in charge of the perennial underachievers of the northeast. And there seems to me no cause for grieving over the effect on his pride and his reputation, since both were probably in need of adjustment.

 

He deserved credit for consistently giving Bolton Wanderers respectable placings in the Premier League during nearly eight years at the Reebok stadium but the record was achieved with football that was pragmatic bordering on primitive. It represented an acceptable ends-justifying-the-means formula for Bolton but it hardly warranted the increasing signs from Allardyce of a conviction that his methods (incorporating a huge backroom staff and heavy reliance on the appliance of science) would put him ahead of the game wherever he managed.

 

There was a confident swagger about his candidacy for the England job after the departure of Sven-Göran Eriksson and, once he and the egregious Freddy Shepherd had somehow convinced themselves he was the right man to create a miraculous revival at St James’ Park, he rode into Newcastle last May on a small gale of self-belief. He even believed himself capable of rescuing the undoubted talent of Joey Barton from the swamp of the player’s recidivist delinquency. It was perhaps the worst of a clutch of mistakes that added to the horrors of a nightmare assignment.

 

Maybe now Big Sam and everybody else in football will have a clearer perspective about his abilities and where they might best be deployed.

 

Jesus how weird is it nowadays reading a piece that's not completely pre-occupied with either a) ridiculing the club or (as per the more recent trend) blaming everything on the fans.

 

McIlvanney has BSA's number spot on with that article for me. Could very easily see him 'doing a Bolton' with another club of a similar profile in the not too distant future, but it never did mean and never will mean that he necessarily had the right skill set for bringing this club on.