The Seven Deadly Sins That Cost Sam Allardyce His Job

By: Daryl | January 9th, 2008

Big Sam sacked Well, Sam Allardyce is gone, baby, gone. Both he and Newcastle United are saying “mutual consent” but we all know better don’t we?

Not exactly a shock, and not sure if Allardyce deserved the boot or not. But he definitely made some mistakes. Have to feel for Big Sam in a way, because after putting in all those years at Bolton this was his shot at managing a big club. And it didn’t last very long. In hindsight (which is indeed a wonderful thing) here are the seven deadly managerial sins that cost Allardyce his job on Tyneside.

1. Playing crappy football
The general consensus is that Big Sam’s patented brand of crappy-looking football combined with mediocre-at-best results was never ever going to be good enough. But even if the results had been better, even if the results had been brilliant, Newcastle fans would still have demanded to see some more palatable football.

2. Buying average players
Though he’d done a great job rehabilitating the elderly resurrecting the rejected at Bolton (Kevin Davies, Gary Speed, Nicolas Anelka, El-Hadji Dioud etc) and picking up some bargains (Tal Ben Haim for about £150,000, not too shabby) this was the first time he’d had big money to spend. Rather than going for the very best, Allardyce signed decent players like Geremi and Alan Smith and lazy layabouts like Mark Viduka.

3. Playing players out of position
Charles N’Zogbia is a good left winger, but a so-so left back. Guess where Big Sam played him? For a second example just replace “Charles N’Zogbia” with “Alan Smith,” “left winger” with “striker” and “left back” with “defensive midfielder.”

4. Chopping and changing formation
Switching around between 4-3-3, 4-5-1 and 4-4-2 didn’t do anyone any favours. With new players and a new manager, Newcastle needed stability.

5. Complaining
Injuries this, African Cup of Nations that, players not being good enough etc. No one likes a whiner Sam.

6. Not talking to the BBC
Allardyce has refused to talk to the BBC ever since they implicated him and his son Craig in the “Panorama” bung investigation. Doesn’t really matter if you don’t give interviews for Match of the Day, though it doesn’t help because it looks you’re refusing to defend yourself. But Allardyce’s self-imposed Beeb blackout also included local radio station BBC Newcastle, where both Glenn Roeder and Graham Souness did good PR by answering questions from fans.

7. Trying to recreate Bolton at Newcastle
This was the biggest mistake of all. By trying to play the same brand of “effective football” and by bringing in an army of backroom staff (sports psychologists, nutrional experts etc) it was clear that Allardyce was trying to recreate his Bolton success at St. James’s Park. The problem isn’t just that the Trotters and the Toon are two very different clubs with different goals and different expectations (Bolton fans would love to be 12th in the Premier League right now) and that Allardyce should have been adaptable enough to bring new solutions to solve new problems at Newcastle. It’s also that his backroom methods, and his methods in general took years to be effective at Bolton. Newcastle were never ever going to give him enough time to do the same.