Sam Allardyce is about to be sworn in as England’s new manager after the Sunderland coach impressed the FA’s head honchos above a handful of candidates.
The former Bolton and West Ham manager is expected to be confirmed for the role during a meeting of the FA’s national board. It’s believed a 2-year contract has been offered by Martin Glenn and his fellow kingmakers Dan Ashworth and David Gill.
Steve Bruce, Jurgen Klinsmann and Eddie Howe were also interviewed for the job, however, Big Sam’s modern take on sports psychology as well as his achingly specific tactical nous has seen the 62-year old finally gifted his dream position – a job of course he first interviewed for back in 2006.
Speaking on the appointment, Martin Glenn, interestingly highlighting the pressures of the press and their effect on the national side, commented;
“The British press, like it or not, are probably the most intensely passionate about the game in the world and that has a spillover effect,” Glenn said. “The consequence of which is people probably play not to make a mistake as opposed to play to win. So the new manager’s got to be someone who can inspire people to get the best out of themselves, build resilience and unashamedly adopt the kind of psychological techniques that other sports and other football teams have done. To really to inspire people that when they put their England jersey on they play as well for England as they do for their club.”
“Speaking to ex-players that have performed well for England it’s a pretty consistent theme, which is resilience under pressure,”
Fair point, however is the pressure any more intense than it is for, say, Brazil? or Germany? Most England supporters would be more than happy with a hard fought respectable Quarter final exit.
Given his decent record in getting good performances from poorly organised sides, we’d say Allardyce is far and away the best man for the job compared to his fellow candidates.
However, if you told us 5 years ago that Big Sam would be rocking up with his PowerPoint presentation, and would indeed be handed the job, we would presume that things had royally gone tits up for the national side.
Ah well, onwards and upwards we guess.