[Archived] Sam Allardyce

[den]

I watched enough of us last season to stand by my point.

Come on, who marked this one up?

[MarkBRFC71]

Come on, who marked this one up?

Me, because I agree.

We look to launch it at every opportunity - fact.

[den]

Me, because I agree.

We look to launch it at every opportunity - fact.

Well that's done your reputation no good.

It's a total overreaction.

[AggyBlue]

We look to launch it at every opportunity - fact.

You have selective vision.

Have you seen any pre season games?

[Eddie]

He's slimey so I an sure he'll end up managing Qatar or somewhere similar and collect a nice salary.

[MarkBRFC71]

You have selective vision.

Have you seen any pre season games?

Unfortunately yes - but my comment referred to last season.

The pre-season change in formation seems to be encouraging less use of hoofball, but the results have been poor. Is that the formation, or the fact we've yet to see the full first team play it?

Will be interesting to see how we're set up against Everton ....

[OJRovers]

No one said the top teams don't play long ball, but they mix it about as well. They won't look to hoof it at every available opportunity, when it would be sensible to keep hold of it.

But we cannot afford a Joe Cole/Fabregas/Lampard to play the ball through midfield.

With us havnig Andrews in midfield, a long ball upfield is probably the better option!

Although I do take your point that at times it is frustrating when we constantly give it back to them through long balls. Hopefully this season we'll be a bit more selective in when we play it long and use the wingers more.

[Amo]

But we cannot afford a Joe Cole/Fabregas/Lampard to play the ball through midfield.

With us havnig Andrews in midfield, a long ball upfield is probably the better option!

I'm not saying we should be bossing the midfield with our personnel, but we should be able to keep the ball, especially when playing the teams around us. As I said, these are professional, highly-paid players, if they can only resort to lumping it downfield we might as well employ a bunch of Sunday leaguers. There were glimpses of this last season, but all too often we fell straight back into the habit of lobbing it away.

[thenodrog]

Me, because I agree.

We look to launch it at every opportunity - fact.

Utter bollockx.

I will say one thing though... We cannot play keep ball when we are leading and trying to run then clock down..... But then every English team is similar and the national team the most suspect.

I'm not saying we should be bossing the midfield with our personnel, but we should be able to keep the ball, especially when playing the teams around us. As I said, these are professional, highly-paid players, if they can only resort to lumping it downfield we might as well employ a bunch of Sunday leaguers. There were glimpses of this last season, but all too often we fell straight back into the habit of lobbing it away.

So are the opposition!

[Steve Moss]

We have an entire month before the close of the transfer window. I trust the prudence of JW and the cunning of Sam will see us through this coming season. More, I think we'll do better than 10th.

The Rovers future is bright. Believe. In honesty, my confidence is explained by 3 Guinness. But I think Sam and the Rovers will have an excellent season.

[JAL]

We have an entire month before the close of the transfer window. I trust the prudence of JW and the cunning of Sam will see us through this coming season. More, I think we'll do better than 10th.

The Rovers future is bright. Believe. In honesty, my confidence is explained by 3 Guinness. But I think Sam and the Rovers will have an excellent season.

ITS ONLY A GAME !

[Steve Moss]

ITS ONLY A GAME !

Ha! Read the sig line: “Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that.” - Bill Shankly.

[braddock]

If it is successful, then yes I do.

I go to Ewood to see my team win, nothing more, nothing less.

Plus, in the last couple of months of the season, there were some excellent perfomances, alas Sam's reputation goes before him.

I suggest you read Parsonblue's post and then read it again.

then we are different

i go to ewood to support my team

through thick and thin, no matter which division

second comes performance

then comes results

[Majiball]

Sorry mate using iphone 2g and it messed up the message.

Brad, warnock, tugay, rsc, benni, bentley thats six off the top of my head not three that have gone since we finished sixth. Sam lost 28 million last season if you inc warnock where did he spend 12 million out of those funds? Jw used to say all transfer money would go to the manager...this has changed some what.

On to the messiah Hughes, how many youngsters did he bring through, do you think sam deserves any credit for this or is it only worthy of a decent job? If you budget for 11th and finish 10th that is an excellent job in most peoples eyes, i assume you expect cl football for an excellent job?

Fair do's.

For me Robbo has done pretty well at replacing Brad, Tugay was struggling already and Benni had not been a key player since his first season. I don't think you can look at it in terms of millions, it warps the view incredibly and its hardly as if most teams in world football replace an 18M striker with an 18M striker. They'd most likely buy a striker and another couple. The ince situation has created a hole in our budget that had to be filled so again saying he didn't get it all is unfair as for that to have happened we would have had to have kept Ince.

He has not replaced like for like and this is a serious issue, we have no left back. We have no midfield, and we have no goals. Our squad is more out of balance than it was when he arrived and we have more sub-standard players than we did when he arrived, its not a good situation and the quality keeps dropping its his job to maintain/improve it.

Secondly I don't claim Hughes to be a messiah, I'm not that type of person, he did do a bloody good job though, better than Sam at present. Secondly if I sit down and draw up my targets for the season with my boss I ensure they are achievable, not unrealistic as you suggest. So 11th from 13th because I chose to sign a player, so if I achieve my targets then yes that's decent as that was what was expected. If I finish one place higher its a small achievement above what was expected, not a miracle. If he'd taken us into to europe IE 7th then yes that would be excellent, but a miracle as you suggest would be CL, because only divine intervention would get us there these days.

Pray tell me how many kids Sam has brought through at his other clubs??? Is it happening because he sees something in them? Jones first game? Or is it because he has too?? Regardless yes they have done well and Sam gets some credit for that, but don't forget he was against playing Jones.

For a club like Blackburn Rovers results must come before entertainment. At the end of the day, Premier League survival is all that matters for the Rovers. Relegation could well spell the end of the club as we know it. I've watched the Rovers for 50 years and I must say that I have seen far worse games during that time than those I witnessed last season - and I was at every one of them. I admit that Sam's pragmatic style is not everyone's cup of tea but, when you listen to the guy, he clearly believes with a passion that his methods and style of play are right for the club. Ultimately, he was appointed to keep the Rovers in the top flight. Those who appointed him knew the style of football he believes in and ultimately the judgement was made that Premier League survival is essential for the long term future of the club.

Mark Hughes left because he felt hindered in his ambitions - for both the club and himself - by a lack of finance. Paul Ince tried to adopt a style of play and management that the players didn't buy into and it almost cost the club dearly.

I feel that Sam is slowly building a team and convincing the players that his methods are correct but, the key to success will depend on who the club can afford to buy to lead the attack.

While Sam keeps this club afloat in the top flight I am more than happy to go along with his methods. I've witnessed the fall from top of Division One to bottom of Division Three with the Rovers once before, it's not something I wish to witness again. I accept that Sam is not the only man who could achieve Premier League survival but he is a SAFE pair of hands. As we saw with Paul Ince, a gamble on the unknown can sometimes be very dangerous.

I've already said that results come first, but as opposed to just considering your viewpoint (not a slant on you per say) you must also consider that a lot of people these days want more. Football is now an entertainment game as well as results and you must provide both, we struggle at times with both aspects. For me I want to learn, football wise this no longer happens at Rovers as we do play a predictable game. Sam plays positional football, this means that he plays to get the ball into dangerous area's, constantly. Pragmatism is not really a word that I would apply to Sam's approach. It for me doesn't suit our players as we lack key abilities through out the team to ensure it is effective the majority of the time. They key as you say is the frontman, but again the type that we need will always be beyond our financial reach, he must be physical, strong in the air, good at holding the ball up and scores 10-15 goals a season. Those attributes as very difficult to find and everyone wants them as 1 up top is the desired way of playing. Is that pragmatic? I would say no as the facts are not considered, we will struggle to find one. I kalinic we have tried to create one, I completely understand this but is it the right way to get the best out of the boy?

Sam will keep us in the league and between 15th and 9th but because he only knows one way to play and we cannot provide him with the money to go out and buy the quality of player we need to make his system work, we will not push back to where we were. Even if we do get a striker that can do the role mentioned, we need a much stronger midfield who are capable of supporting him, creating and scoring goals, we do not have the funds to buy them all. We also need quality supply from the flanks and set-pieces as we do not excel in this area as we need to, proven by our mid table finish in goals from set-pieces last season.

As a team we lack creativity, we fall back into basic football when we are under pressure as Topman suggests and we can only base our views on what we have seen to date. I don't look at one portion of his rein IE the tail end of last year and judge from there, as its not correct to do so. I would also discount his first half season as the situation required it. But last year as a whole we predominately played for position, which was at times highly ineffective. This is proven by our position and the results at the half-way stage last year. And yet our better results and performances as the two do go hand in hand, came when we mixed it up and varied our play. This is the route we have to go down now, Sam has been here for a full season and now is the time to develop things, progress the style to allow us to progress beyond what we are currently. Its not unachievable with limited funds as Hughes proofed, more difficult yes perhaps because of the money others have but its only in our league that this has really happened, the bargains are still out there.

My first Rovers game was way back in the old second division against Chelsea and also, but some what fogily remember the bad days, but I would never compare that with today as the picture had changed and we are nothing like we were back then. Sam yes will maintain that picture in that he will keep us in this league and if that's enough for you and others then fine, but its not for me and never will be. I want to see us progress and develop and do not believe that money is the be all and end all in doing so.

I don't object to Sam's tactics, but there is often an overemphasis on launching it down-field when we really need someone to put their foot on the ball. These are highly-paid professional footballers, they should be able to keep the ball down for five minutes.

Given all they have to go through to make it as an ELITE LEVEL PLAYER, I to do not believe they cannot play a 10-20 yard pass and then move. Mix it up with positional play at times, but if you don't have the ball???

[Fife Rover]

Would you rather watch Arsenal or Chelsea is what we're saying here basically.

I for one would rather watch Arsenal - don't win anything but play better football.

Well don't let us keep you......I am sure they will be pleased to see you.

[imy9]

The point I was and am making is that Sam has had more constraints put on him than any other manager we have had before Jacks era. He sold 28 million pounds worth of players, that would have meant 28 million pounds of investment under other managers, Sam got.... 6.5million?! Robbo has done well but he isnt Brad, bentley is our biggest miss imo.

Under Hughes cant think of any youngster coming through the ranks, sam brought through Jones, Hanley, Olsson,Hoillett, Aley and others we have seen pre season. I agree Sam has not brought through many at his previous clubs but surely that shows how adaptable he is as a manager? Out of interest what other clubs in the top flight use league position as a basis to award funds for the following season. I would still maintain what Sam has done is amazing from what he picked up, but i agree with a lot of what you said about style of football and how it could be developed, i think we will play better football once we get central midfield players who can play that.

Elite footballers? Mentioned it a few messages back, elite certainly excludes 90% of pl footballers.

[MarkBRFC71]

The point I was and am making is that Sam has had more constraints put on him than any other manager we have had before Jacks era. He sold 28 million pounds worth of players, that would have meant 28 million pounds of investment under other managers, Sam got.... 6.5million?! Robbo has done well but he isnt Brad, bentley is our biggest miss imo.

Under Hughes cant think of any youngster coming through the ranks, sam brought through Jones, Hanley, Olsson,Hoillett, Aley and others we have seen pre season. I agree Sam has not brought through many at his previous clubs but surely that shows how adaptable he is as a manager? Out of interest what other clubs in the top flight use league position as a basis to award funds for the following season. I would still maintain what Sam has done is amazing from what he picked up, but i agree with a lot of what you said about style of football and how it could be developed, i think we will play better football once we get central midfield players who can play that.

Elite footballers? Mentioned it a few messages back, elite certainly excludes 90% of pl footballers.

Allardyce spent £12m last season.

And the youngsters were brought through largely because the first teamers either were way out of form or injured, and we had no funds to buy replacements IMO.

He's done a decent job, but he's not the Messiah, he's a very arrogant boy ....

[Fife Rover]

That has always been the case since the abolition of the maximum wage in the 1960s and the best players left their home-town clubs for the big city wealthier clubs. The PL at present is a purely commercial enterprise but the footballing idyll you seek has not existed for 50 years and is never going to return. If you want Rovers to be contunue feasting athe top table, it means being pragmatic about the type of player the club can afford and type of football the team can play.

Exactly Jim! What a pity that the vast majority of our present supporters are just too young to be able to recall the days when football grounds were crammed and the football was always exciting and often very good. Those were the days when you just lived from Saturday to Saturday and could hardly wait for the next match.

Family weddings had to be arranged to avoid the Rovers home games.And for large numbers,the appetite for football could only be sated by going to watch Preston or Burnley on the days when Rovers were away. Sigh!!

[jim mk2]

Sam will keep us in this league and if that's enough for you and others then fine, but its not for me and never will be. I want to see us progress and develop and do not believe that money is the be all and end all in doing so.

Everyone wants to see Rovers make progress and no one could deny that the club has made good strides on and off the pitch in the past 12 months. However it is harsh fact of life of the Premier League that without substantial sums of money it is very difficult for Rovers to improve on the 10th place achieved last season. Money buys better players and the ever-higher wages those players demand and money increases the size of squads to increase competition for place and cover for injuries. In short, money buys the extra points that translate into a better league position. Money certainly does not guaraentee success as Man City found last season but in the present environment it is nigh-on impossible to achieve anything without it.

[Mattyblue]

then we are different

i go to ewood to support my team

through thick and thin, no matter which division

second comes performance

then comes results

To try and imply that I don't support my team 'through thick and thin' as I prioritise results is a very strange argument.

My first season we nearly went down to the third division, it was crap, no misty eyed nostaliga from me.

I want the very best for Blackburn Rovers, I want us in the top league. How do you achieve that? By winning football matches!

[47er]

We were a good team when we had Savage,Bentley and Tugay and at least one decent striker,whether it be Bellamy,Benni or Santa Cruz, the last 2 of whom got us through 1 season each.All have gone, none has effectively been replaced because the manager hasn't had the funds. To finish tenth last year was a miracle which I'm not confident will be repeated in the near future. To blame the manager for any of this is simply churlish and born of prejudice.

[Majiball]

The point I was and am making is that Sam has had more constraints put on him than any other manager we have had before Jacks era. He sold 28 million pounds worth of players, that would have meant 28 million pounds of investment under other managers, Sam got.... 6.5million?! Robbo has done well but he isnt Brad, bentley is our biggest miss imo.

Under Hughes cant think of any youngster coming through the ranks, sam brought through Jones, Hanley, Olsson,Hoillett, Aley and others we have seen pre season. I agree Sam has not brought through many at his previous clubs but surely that shows how adaptable he is as a manager? Out of interest what other clubs in the top flight use league position as a basis to award funds for the following season. I would still maintain what Sam has done is amazing from what he picked up, but i agree with a lot of what you said about style of football and how it could be developed, i think we will play better football once we get central midfield players who can play that.

Elite footballers? Mentioned it a few messages back, elite certainly excludes 90% of pl footballers.

Imy9 and all others, there are 40,000+ registered football clubs (not teams) in this country alone. If you do not consider the top 20 clubs players as Elite, that's up to you. In the scientific world they are termed elite and also in the footballing world, there's more to consider than just the league we play in. Even if I claim each of those clubs has only one team and 22 players that's 880,000, 440 of them would play in our league less than 1%, they are the ELITE no matter what you believe the term to mean.

Constraints??? Sam was given every penny and more (increasing the wage budget) that we could afford. Did the club tell Sam to sell RSC and sign a 6 million hopeful??? Did the club tell Sam to sell our left back and sign 2 right backs??? The club never increased the budget for Hughes or others, they never gave him the kind of money to spend that Souness enjoyed his predecessor. The trust/our bank manager has even provided him with more funds, the club have done more to provide Sam with money than anyone since Souness. I'm not trying to compare him to Hughes but point out that he's not this irreplacable messiah type that so many on here seem to believe him to be. He's a decent premier league manager who provided he can get the personel to suit his one and only system will do well. The trouble is we don't and never did have the funds he needs to do this as none of the players he inherited really suit that game. Despite what I read about him being great on a shoestring budget, I do believe that its a bit misleading as despite not spending much on fees at Bolton wages were huge, something we could never have provided him with.

But we have replaced Bentley, we have Diouf Sam replaced him with a sub standard player. Adaptable, mate come on the second you wrote that you must have known what I would say:

IF he's so bloody adaptable why can he not develop a system to suit the strengths of our team as opposed to playing the identical way way he did at Blackpool, Bolton & Newcastle???

Olsson and Jones have defo come through, but the others??? Hoillet doesn't look any better than he did at the start of the year, Hanley has played 1 game, thats it, he hasn't made it. Aley hasn't played for the first team he most certainly has not been brought through to date. When they've all played in the league regularly and not looked out of depth they will have been brought through, not before and most certainly not in pre-season, Jack Wilshire springs to mind I do not remember him playing in SA.

Everyone wants to see Rovers make progress and no one could deny that the club has made good strides on and off the pitch in the past 12 months. However it is harsh fact of life of the Premier League that without substantial sums of money it is very difficult for Rovers to improve on the 10th place achieved last season. Money buys better players and the ever-higher wages those players demand and money increases the size of squads to increase competition for place and cover for injuries. In short, money buys the extra points that translate into a better league position. Money certainly does not guaraentee success as Man City found last season but in the present environment it is nigh-on impossible to achieve anything without it.

As a footballer I was reasonably quick and not very strong, so when I played against a strong player I initially tried to battle with him, I lost. Eventually I figured out that I had other strengths that when used correctly I could beat him. The point I'm trying to make is that there is more than one way to play the game and as opposed to trying to play it the money way Rovers must play it another. We will never progress if we try and play the game a way we can never win. Knock 10% of the wage budget, invest in the youth set-up and back-room team, employing the best people we can lay our hands on and looking long term as opposed to our current model.

[Amo]

Majiball speaks the truth. Sam is an established PL manager, but he's not a miracle worker. I'd call qualifying for the Top Four a 'miracle', but not a top 10 finish in his second season. We qualified for Europe in Mark Hughes' second year, and he also had to rebuild a declining squad. The Premier League hasn't changed all that much, in the grand scheme of things. We're still one of the lowest spenders compared to the city contingent.

As said above, Sam has had every available resource handed to him, even over-budgeting to sign Salgado. He's been his own worst enemy in that respect, such as signing Chimbonda when we already had three capable right-backs, and making Pedersen a summer 'priority' which has burned an even bigger hole in the wage bill, and keeping crap like Andrews when the time was right to sell him. All these decisions encompass what happens with the summer budget, and makes the subtle difference between signing a new striker and not. So while the Trust keep their hands rooted in their pockets, and JW can't negotiate contracts for toffee, Sam also has his own responsibility to ensure every penny is spent wisely.

[imy9]

The numbers you use are wrong, simply wrong! When hughes signed savage for 3.5 million who did he sell to fund it? 2.5 million benni, 3 million roberts, 1.5 million bentley? Bellamy 4 million? Now look at who sam has signed and look at where the money has gone, 28 million has paid for givet 4 million, diouf 1 million, chimbonda 1.5 million, nzonzi 400k, 6 million on kalinic that is a total of about 13 million in and 28 million out.

Sam had to sell warnock to cover a hole in the wages, when did this happen under hughes? Before you say look at salgado and diouf, remember tugay-20k, aaron-30k, rsc-70k, derb-20k came off the wage bill too.

Elite- means the very best, at the very top- would you say blackpool fit into this criteria? Dj campbell is an elite footballer in the same way Berbatov is? Champions league is an elite league where the best of each nation enter, bottom 3 of league are not elite!!thus the argument could be made that we struggle because we are faced with elite footballers!

Point about youth is that we are seeing them, we never did under hughes! Purchasing youth too is a positive, sam HAD to sign kalinic because the older players he wanted- Crouch and bent were too expensive-according to the trust.

Finally Sams football works for our system- we finished 10th- pretty difficult to argue it doesnt- proof is in the pudding as they.

Topman- did you really say pl has not changed that much?we now have Sunderland and man city bought by billionaires and spending vast amounts, stoke being funded by a wealthy owner, as well as villa, thats FOUR teams who are our rivals for places, all teams in the league now spend more money than us that is an actual truth, a fact.

[tony gale's mic]

Majiball speaks the truth. Sam is an established PL manager, but he's not a miracle worker. I'd call qualifying for the Top Four a 'miracle', but not a top 10 finish in his second season. We qualified for Europe in Mark Hughes' second year, and he also had to rebuild a declining squad. The Premier League hasn't changed all that much, in the grand scheme of things. We're still one of the lowest spenders compared to the city contingent.

As said above, Sam has had every available resource handed to him, even over-budgeting to sign Salgado. He's been his own worst enemy in that respect, such as signing Chimbonda when we already had three capable right-backs, and making Pedersen a summer 'priority' which has burned an even bigger hole in the wage bill, and keeping crap like Andrews when the time was right to sell him. All these decisions encompass what happens with the summer budget, and makes the subtle difference between signing a new striker and not. So while the Trust keep their hands rooted in their pockets, and JW can't negotiate contracts for toffee, Sam also has his own responsibility to ensure every penny is spent wisely.

Maybe "miracle worker" is a bit strong, but the Premier League has changed since Mark Hughes' time. We finished 6th, 7th and 10th under Hughes. Now we have City and also Spurs are much stronger than they were under Sparky so that already means that when added to Villa (who really only came into money halfway through Hughes' reign) and Everton there's eight clubs with more resources than we could ever hope to have.

And as has been described above Sam is working under much tougher budget constraints. Yes RSC, McCarthy and Bellamy were great buys but Sam doesn't even have the chance to spend that much on a striker now.

All this "elite footballers" stuff is nonsense too. To be honest "elite" is a subjective term and can be argued about for hours depending on what you place the term "elite" relative to. However if they're "elite" footballers they're also playing against other "elite" footballers week in week out and the majority of the time even better than "elite" (if that's what you define our players as). Therefore they need to play a system where they can get maximum results.

You think if Rovers were playing against a park team they'd employ similar tactics? No, they'd doubtless pass the ball around a lot more as they'd be able to beat the park team on possession, creativity and skill. The park team would probably prefer they play the long ball stuff. However, when coming up against teams who have had much more money pumped into them and so have been able to get players with more skill and creativity, they know they can out pass Rovers, but it's the long ball stuff they'd have more problems dealing with. So that's why Sam uses those tactics and that's why it's proved successful.