Arrogant clot, for sure, but did this really merit England ditching Allardyce? | Daniel Taylor


Sam Allardyce’s reign is over, the buffoon paying the price for hawking himself around only a few weeks after landing the England job

The cartoonist Mike Stokoe neatly sums up the madness of the England job with a wonderful little sketch that hangs from one of the walls of the National Football Museum in Manchester. The cartoon shows an interview for the job and the applicant sitting nervously in front of three Football Association blazers. “And if you lose one game on the trot you’re sacked.”

Sam Allardyce has certainly excelled himself being the man who managed it after one match, one victory and the grand total of 67 days in office. Everything had been going so well after that win in Slovakia. England’s next opponents are Malta a week on Saturday and three days later, to quote the man himself, there is a trip to “Slovenia or something”. Gareth Southgate will be in charge while the man who has overseen the shortest and most ignominious reign of any England manager will presumably have to find another home for his lucky coin. The bottom of a river, perhaps.

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