Next England Manager

I think it's known I'm not a fan of Sam, but he is a clever bloke and he's just made two very astute appointments. Sammy Lee is just what you need around the place and Paul Clement is one of the very good, modern coaches.

Fair play.

 

He got my email then....

 

I always liked Allardyce. Doesn't play the most exciting brand of football, but he often doesn't have the players to do so. And he's not as bad as people say.

I pull for people like him because they get tend to get tagged with the "Sure he's good at keeping small sides up, but he can't handle the big stage" label. And maybe that's true, but it's good that at least he's getting the opportunity to try.

 

Quite glad he's got the England job. He's always been a pragmatic manager. And I do like his focus, which is, playing football to win games, no more, no less. If it happens to be entertaining, then that's a bonus. Football is a sport, after all. Not Saturday Night at the London Palladium.
England need to get a proper tournament competing mentality. Keep the expectations low and let's see how they go.

 

Plus, he's leaving to coach a national side. If it were some random country, okay. But a manager leaving to coach their own country is not just understandable, but an admirable thing for them to do. And the ridiculous thing is, it's also Sunderland's country.

Do they think their club is more important than England?

 

Well I think Southampton is far more important than England.

Those overpaid egotistical testicles can do stroke their own egos.

 

I like the fact that Sam Allardyce is clearly delighted....as you should be when asked to manage your country. I find him an interesting appointment as you would expect the FA to appoint someone more suave. Sam is like a caricature of an old-fashioned football manager, but is apparently into the modern technical side of the game. It will be interesting to see what he can do when he has a better standard of player, but only sees them occasionally. This is an appointment whose success will depend a great deal on what the England team make of him. Hopefully, the team is so contrite about Euro 2016, they will be willing to give their best. Interesting times....and I mean that in a hopeful way.

 

If only our footballers were as pleased to play for England as he is to manage them.

 

Didn't realise that in our last 2 tournaments we actually only mustered 1 win.....
Maybe Sam is what England need.....hope so.

 

I don't recall people saying he couldn't handle the big stage. Certainly plenty of people have moaned about his style of football, me being one.

I admired what he did at Bolton, but have not enjoyed watching his sides since. He's the one manager that nearly made me miss a game at Southampton because the thought of sitting through the negativity and anti-football used to make me boil.

However he is England's choice, so I'll be getting behind the team like I always do and will scone one of those fickle bastards calling for his knighthood, if we we win the World Cup beating everyone 1-0.

 

You obviously didn't go to St Mary's for the championship match and the two Prem games he managed West Ham there! The only mentality he introduced to those games was stifling, wind everyone up and don't get beat mentality.

 

It certainly comes to something when you discuss the England job and think Allardyce is the best we have. Its a great appointment in the weirdest kind of way.

 

Which is exactly the mentality that England need to have in tournaments!

Let's face it - who cares if it's ugly? If England win a couple of games, it will be worth it.

 

I'm guessing that Creswell might now jump ahead of Bertrand in the pecking order. If Shaw shows no long term affects of his injury, Ryan could find himself out of the England reckoning now.

But with this healthy competition of fairly young England LBs (Rose as well of course), that can only help both the England team and the likes of Bertrand to push their game onto an even higher level (he's a pretty darn good LB as it is!).

 

Again you are talking about style and strategy, not effectiveness. Look, you can always point to instances and individual games and say no. Honestly, I'm not interested in the odd instance one can point to. The general trend with Allardyce is that he is effective over time, if he is allowed to do things his way. The England setup badly needs a bit of a morale boost after the last two tournaments and, although I would prefer Pep Guardiola or Jose Mourinho to be the manager that isn't going to happen. Yes, England could have ruined Eddie Howe's fledgling career, and found out that Steve Bruce was too nice a person after all. Personally, I think Allardyce is an experiment whose time has come. He's actually the closest relatively successful modern English manager I can think of to Brian Clough, and he doesn't work better with a Peter Taylor either. Although he doesn't have Clough's desire to play expansive football with any level of player, rather picking a style to suit the 11 he has, he is a man manager from a similar mould. Previously, recent England have been polite bumblers [apart from Capello] in the man management and motivation line. They sat in the match dugout with worried expressions while their counterpart walked about his technical area showing passion in directing his team. I want an England manager to show some passion. I want one who can clearly motivate. And England can't do much worse than they have done.

 

Again? Did you read my post? He didn't play to win. That was my point.

If strategy is not about effectiveness I don't know what is. The strategy must be to achieve your goal. His goal was not to try and win the game.

 

You're talking about one or two instances again. I'm not interested in moments in time. He's effective overall.

Who would you have preferred out of the long and illustrious list of English candidates.?

 

Fat Sam's awesome strategy will be to not lose games then batter them on a penalties, what could possibly go wrong?

 

Sorry to butt in, but Big Sam is a coach who plays not to lose. Thats his default