[Archived] Sam Allardyce

[philipl]

Don't 'drog- it is too painful to remember.

It was like take your son to work day when Ince came up against Ferguson, Wenger, Benitez and Scolari.

[thenodrog]

  philipl said:

Don't 'drog- it is too painful to remember.

It was like take your son to work day when Ince came up against Ferguson, Wenger, Benitez and Scolari.

The writing was on the wall as soon as he showed more affection for the Wolves fans than our own.

[MCMC1875]

  thenodrog said:

The writing was on the wall as soon as he showed more affection for the Wolves fans than our own.

The writing was on the wall at his first press conference when JW said 'We're not in the bottom 3' and Ince grinned and piped up '....Not yet'.

[Guest Kamy100]

Sam: I won't walk away

Good to hear that if the worst happened he would stay, although why does he keep referring to Rovers as "them", surely it should be "us/we"

[RevidgeBlue]

Absolutely ridiculous that Sam should have to undergo any sort of "review" if the worst comes to the worst.

The only thing that needs "reviewing" is the performance of the owners in starving successive managers (including Sam) of necessary funding and to a lesser extent the performance of the Board in the light of the ill fated appointment of Ince.

Bit worrying that Sam is referring to us as "them" though. An indication that relations are slightly strained behind the scenes?

[LeChuck]

"Them" will probably be the men above him who will ultimately decide whether they could afford to keep him or not if we did go down, not the club as a whole...although it's difficult to put that in context without the question that prompted the answer. Good news though, I think we'd be able to keep him for one season if we did go down, but if we failed at the first attempt then he'd have to go.

[Jan]

  MCMC1875 said:

The writing was on the wall at his first press conference when JW said 'We're not in the bottom 3' and Ince grinned and piped up '....Not yet'.

Still having therapy* about that one.

*keep repeating "murder is always wrong"

[MCMC1875]

  MCMC1875 said:

The writing was on the wall at his first press conference when JW said 'We're not in the bottom 3' and Ince grinned and piped up '....Not yet'.

Perhaps Waggy's forgotten about that one.

[philipl]

I am being very pleasantly surprised by Sam.

After the Villa game when we were outplayed, Sam acknowledged there were genuine penalty appeals (three of them) but concentrated on the fact that for the first time at Rovers he'd come up against a superior outfit- which he had done.

By contrast, at OT we had a less visibly clear-cut penalty shout than any of the three v Villa but Sam has rightly made a stink about it. Not least because our performance in the game warranted at least a point and the performance of the officials was as much to blame as anything else for the Rovers going home empty handed.

I also really liked Sam's comment that yes of course Ronaldo should have been sent off but doing him now on video evidence with a three game suspension would only benefit our relegation rivals as he would be unavailable to face them.

[tonygreenbank]

  thenodrog said:

btw ...... No matter that they are reputed to be a bit chummy but it was nice to see SA stand up to the old RFW on the touchline at OT. Clash of the titans? Paul Ince would have been a simpering wreck with a weak ingratiating smile and would have gone belly up as soon as Fergy pointed an admonishing finger at him. I certainly have not missed his perplexing fawning over opposition managers.

Heard an old Mourinho interview today when asked who was the manager he feared the most; his answer was Big Sam as "he would beat me up! He`s BIG".

[rover6]

Allardyce should be ashamed of himself for playing Villaneuva on the wing against Coventry. It worked terribly in the second half in the original tie. Dunn on the left looked bad as well. So why go and play a non-winger on the wing AND on the wrong flank, yet again?

Why not play a right winger on the right wing - Doran, Haworth etc. etc and play Carlos central? It'd be a risk - but Allardyce didn't give two hoots about the FA Cup anyway.

I suspect, the backtracking that took place in the run up to the game about how important the CUp was was a bit of PR scripting from John Williams.

[Eddie]

Wasn't a fan of his before he came. Didn't want him to come. He's doing very little to make me want him to stay.

[den]

  rover6 said:

Allardyce should be ashamed of himself for playing Villaneuva on the wing against Coventry. It worked terribly in the second half in the original tie.

Carlos has had opportunities Rover6. Face the reality, he's not good enough.

[sambo]

  den said:

Carlos has had opportunities Rover6. Face the reality, he's not good enough.

So why play him, especially out of position

[den]

  sambo said:

So why play him, especially out of position

We would be a weaker side with him central midfield.

[Mr. E]

...honestly, am I the only one with access to the league table? Did we not just get knocked out by Coventry?

Where is all this optimism coming from I don't understand.

[DE.]

  Mr. E said:

...honestly, am I the only one with access to the league table? Did we not just get knocked out by Coventry?

Where is all this optimism coming from I don't understand.

It's hard to be optimistic, but i'd rather be that than pessimistic. There's time to be pessimistic when we look well and truly cut adrift. I feel I may turn to the dark side if we can't beat Hull

In regards to Big Sam... why did he bring on RSC tonight? Huge mistake in my mind... the team he set out were weak, and based on that we have to assume he did not consider the FA Cup a big priority. So why, why bring on our injury-prone world class striker? Why bring on MGP, our only capable left winger (Diouf excluded)? He's confused me tonight, and perhaps made the wrong decisions, especially if RSC picked up a knock.

[RevidgeBlue]

I'm a Sam fan but after his first four games, which could arguably be attributed to "new manager bounce" it has to be said he hasn't been producing results.

Sunderland A draw

Bolton H draw

Boro A draw

Sunderland H draw (after 90 mins)

Villa H loss

Coventry H draw

ManUre A loss

Coventry A loss

I wonder if he is finding out the hard way that he can't get any more out of this set of players than Ince did?

[modes98]

We've hit a wall. We created the chances to win the draws, just failed to take them at key times. That needs to change for us to survive.

[Sparky Marky]

Sam is the best man for the job at this stage. We've been systematically screwed up by Ince and the lack of investment earlier under Hughes. Even if we happen to go down, in my opinion Sam is best suited to getting us back quickly. I just can't understand why he couldn't just play his best team.

[thenodrog]

  Eddie said:

Wasn't a fan of his before he came. Didn't want him to come. He's doing very little to make me want him to stay.

Lets give Ince a ring eh eddie? Fortunately most on here are aware that you know sweet FA about the game.

Still I guess being such a loyal and regular paying customer at ewood that you are as entitled to voice your opinion as anybody else.

[RevidgeBlue]

  Sparky Marky said:

Even if we happen to go down, in my opinion Sam is best suited to getting us back quickly.

Probably.

Except for the fact there is talk of having a "review" which will lead to his departure one way or another if we go down.

[BuckyRover]

I definitely prefer losing under Allardyce

[thenodrog]

  RevidgeBlue said:

Probably.

Except for the fact there is talk of having a "review" which will lead to his departure one way or another if we go down.

Not many managers resign nowadays unless by a one sided mutual agreement. Remuneration far outweighs principles and pride.

  BuckyRover said:

I definitely prefer losing under Allardyce

Me too!

[DE.]

Sam's reaction to the defeat:

"It's very very disappointing when you tell the players what you want to do, but unfortunately they go out on the pitch and do it (I assume he meant don't do it?)."

"11 players that should be more capable of running around than anybody else at the football club, but didn't really run around too much in the second half from what I saw. I was very disappointed with the attitude in terms of closing the opposition down and stopping them playing."

"That doesn't mean to say that the 11 players I picked today should not have gone out and won this game, i think they should. That's why I picked them. They wanted the opportunity to play first team football, they think they deserve an opportunity to play more first team football. In the first half, it looked like they were showing me that, in the second half

they didn't."

"We lost our game too much in all aspects really."

He sounds gutted. I think he feels hugely let down by the squad he put out. I can only imagine what Ince's interview would have been like.

"Well you know, you've gotta laugh you know? The lads worked hard you know, we're just not getting the luck and you know, as long as we keep working to that standard, you know, we'll start picking up points. You know?"