West Ham. New Manager-New Era!

In this blog I will be taking a look at the new man at the helm of the Hammers, Sam Allardyce. No stone will be left unturned and no draw left unopened, I am looking at the pros and the cons, I have no opinion of Sam as of yet as he has not even been in charge for one game.

Early Managerial Career

Sam Allardyce first joined a clubs backroom staff when he joined up with Brian Talbot at West Bromich Albion as a player coach but took on the role of an assistant manager in 1989. He continued in this role for two years, in 1991 Brian Talbot and Allardyce were both sacked by the West Bromich board as the club were slipping towards relegation.

Limerick

In 1991 Allardyce took over Limerick as a player/manager, in his first year classified as a manager, and his only year at Limerick, he gained promotion with the club with points to spare. Limerick finished in first place with 38 points losing only 3 games all season long, Limerick also finished the league with a goal difference of +20. Allardyce then left Limerick in order to return to England as an assistant manger in the 1992-1993 seasons with Preston North End.

Preston North End

Les Chapman was the manager of Preston North End when Sam Allardyce joined as the assistant manager; however, this didn’t last very long. Ten games into the season Chapman was sacked by the Preston board. Allardyce took over as caretaker manager but failed to save the club from relegation. Preston North End finished the season in 21^st place, 3 points behind Hull City who lay in 20^th. The Preston board decided Allardyce did not have enough managerial experience to take him on as the manager full time and decided to take on John Beck, who then appointed Gary Peters as his assistant, Allardyce was then a coach. It stayed this way for 18 months until the opportunity to manage Blackpool came up, Allardyce knew what he wanted to do and he went for it, getting the job in 1994.

Blackpool

In Big Sam’s first season in charge he showed qualities that he could become a high class manager. Blackpool finished in 12^th position with 64 points; Allardyce was then told the club wanted him to gain promotion into Division One. Unfortunately Allardyce wasn’t able to make this happen and Blackpool finished in 3^rd place, 1 point behind Oxford who finished 2^nd and did gain automatic promotion. Sam Allardyce was told for a long time his job was safe no matter what happened and he was asked, at the end of the season, to go into the board room for a talk over a new contract, when Sam was in the meeting he was told they would not be discussing terns for a new contract, instead they were sacking him from his position as manager. After his sacking Allardyce was coaching under Peter Reid of Sunderland for a brief spell before joining Notts County.

Notts County

Sam joined Notts County in January 1997, by this time they were already deep in trouble and Allardyce was unable to save the inevitable from happening, Notts were relegated into Division Three. The main aim for Sam Allardyce was to guide Notts County back into Division Two first time of asking, something he done with ease. In the season of 1997-98 Notts finished top of Division Three, winning the league by a massive 17 points. Sam remained in charge of Notts until October 1999, when he had the opportunity to take up the job as manager at Bolton, the club he spent 7 years playing for during his career.

Bolton Wanderers

When Sam Allardyce took charge at Bolton Wanderers they were looming around in the bottom half of the table, Allardyce managed to rally the troops and get Bolton into the play offs. They did, in fact lose the playoffs so this would be no fairytale return for Big Sam, but he did also manage to get Bolton into the League Cup and FA Cup semi finals.

In the 2000-01 season Allardyce managed to make an improvement on his previous career and arguably won his most important trophy, finishing in 3^rd place, 4 points behind Blackburn only slightly missing out on automatic promotion. Bolton had Preston North End in the final, a game in which they were in complete control winning 3-0.

Joining the premiership in the season of 2001-02, Bolton made an impressive start, gaining 10 point from the first 4 games. Unfortunately Bolton were unable to keep up this form and slipped further and further down the premiership as the season went on, the season came down to the last game, where all results went in Bolton’s favour. Eventually Bolton ended up finishing the season in 16rh place with a respectable 40 points.  2002-03 was a worse season for Bolton as they struggled for points all season long, eventually ending the season just above the relegation zone, in 17^th place, 2 points above West Ham who were relegated with 42 points. The 2003-04 season was a completely different story for Bolton, as they sustained a showed major points of improvement and finished the season in a very respectable 8^th place with 53 points, 20 points away from the relegation zone. Bolton also reached the Carling Cup final, a game in which they lost 2-1 to Middlesbrough, Joseph-Désiré Job scored after 2 minutes, which, for a year, was the fastest goal to ever be scored in the Carling Cup. Joseph-Désiré Job was then tripped up in the box 5 minutes later, Boudewijn Zenden stepped up to take the resulting penalty, he lost his footing and slipped as he was about to kick the ball, luckily for Middlesbrough, Jussi Jääskeläinen had dived to his left, allowing the ball to fly into the back of the net. Kevin Davies scored for Bolton after 21 minutes; these were the only goals to be scored in the game.

 The 2004-05 season saw the most successful season in the careers for both Bolton and Allardyce. Bolton ended up finishing the season in 6^th place, securing 58 points over the season and a goal difference of +5. Allardyce lead Bolton to the knockout stages of the UEFA Cup and Bolton finished the season in 8^th place.

2006 was a cause for speculation, when we all learned Sven-Göran Eriksson would be leaving the England managers role after the 2006 world cup. Allardyce was said to me a big contender for the England post once Sven had left, Bolton did confirm they would allow their manager to talk to the FA had they approached him. Allardyce was never offered the job and it eventually went to Steve McClaren.

On the 28^th of April 2007 Allardyce was said to be ready to leave Bolton, the Bolton board highly denied this speculation, which seemed pointless for them to do as the next day they announced Allardyce had resigned as manager of Bolton after 8 years.  Allardyce told the Mail on Sunday his reason for leaving was that he was looking for silverware, something in which he don’t believe he could win at Bolton.  On the 6^th of May 2007 Glenn Roeder resigned as the manager of Newcastle, Allardyce was immediately considered bookies favourite for the job.

Newcastle United

On the 21^st of May 2007 Allardyce was confirmed as Newcastle United’s new manager, signing a 3 year deal. The first move Allardyce made was to release 6 players from Newcastle before the season even started. Olivier Bernard, Craig Moore, Oguchi Onyewu, Titus Bramble, Pavel Srníček and Antoine Sibierski were the players to be axed. Allardyce was wasting no time to make his mark on Newcastle by making his first signing on the season on the 7^th of June 2007; Mark Viduka was the man he picked to score the goals for Newcastle, snapping up the Australian on a free transfer. Allardyce was busy in the transfer window. Alan Smith was signed as a utility man; he also signed defenders David Rozehnal from Paris Saint-Germain, Claudio Cacapa from Olympique Lyonnais, Geremi from Chelsea after his contract expired, José Enrique from Villareal. Allardyce signed one midfielder in Joey Barton/ He acted late in the window to sign up Habib Beye and Abdoulaye Faye from old club Bolton.

Allardyce clearly had high hopes for the upcoming season and this looked like it may happen with the promising squad he had built. Newcastle had a very disappointing start to the season picking up just 1 point in 6 against bottom of the table Wigan and Derby. Newcastle fans were protesting against Allerdyce and the board seemed to agree, on the 9^th of January 2008 Allardyce parted company with Newcastle by mutual consent.

Blackburn

Allardyce was appointed manager of Blackburn on the 18^th of December 2008. His first game in charge was a 3-0 victory over Stoke at Ewood Park, making a good impression on the home fans is always a good start for a manager. Blackburn then went onto a 9 game unbeaten run, which was abruptly ended with a 2-0 defeat to Aston Villa. Blackburn only won 2 away games all season, yet they only lost 1 at home. Blackburn finished in 15^th position in the 2008-09 season with 41 points on the table.

The 2009-10 season was more impressive for Blackburn and Allardyce as he lead the club to the League Cup Semi Finals against Aston Villa, Villa came out on top over the 2 legs against Blackburn but as few expected Blackburn to get to that point on the competition it was still seen as a big achievement for the club. Blackburn also went unbeaten against the big four at home while under Sam Allardyce, a feat they hadn’t achieved for 14 years, Drawing 0-0 against Liverpool and Manchester United. Drawing 1-1 with Chelsea and beating Arsenal 2-1. Rovers beat Aston Villa on the last day of the season; this was the first time in 11 years Blackburn done the double over Aston Villa in 11 years, finishing in 10^th place.

Fabio Capello was under pressure after England’s poor showing in the 2010 World Cup, Sam Allardyce, once again, was linked with the position, should it become available. He responded by stating he had not been winning trophies because he was not at nig enough clubs. Saying this did not please the Blackburn board and they decided to sack him after a 2-1 defeat at the hands of Bolton Wanderers.

The Blackburn players were shocked by the sacking as were most people in the football world.

West Ham United

Sam Allardyce became the manager of West Ham on the 1^st of June 2011. Big Sam has vowed to play attractive football and keep the traditions alive at the club. So far Sam Allardyce has added Abdoulaye Faye and Kevin Nolan to his squad, the signing of Nolan shows his intention of playing attractive football as if he was just looking to knock the ball in the air from defence to attack he would cut out the midfield, Kevin Nolan is such an influential player, and is being given the captains armband, Nolan is surely going to look to him to influence the club and will more than likely look to build a club around him.

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Thanks

Deen Galer