Big Sam’s big fall the product of a polluted atmosphere of greed | Barney Ronay

Sep 28, 2016

England get the managers they deserve but FA’s mistake was not in appointing Sam Allardyce to high office but in fostering the culture that led to his downfall

Farewell then, Big Sam. We’ll always have the good times. Like that Adam Lallana goal. Or being 1-0 up for the last 40 seconds of an away qualifying win in Slovakia. Which was basically the same as that Adam Lallana goal. Plus of course there was that moment just after the Adam Lallana goal when you said “it’s not for me to say where Wayne Rooney plays”. Which was absolutely correct, as it turns out.

There have been failed England managers before. There have been funny England managers. There have been depressing ones too. Incompetent: check. Greedy: roger that. As Sam Allardyce leaves his post after 67 days one thing is clear. Never before has an England manager succeeded in being all these things simultaneously in such a thrillingly short space of time. Appointed in July, gone in September, Allardyce has been the Willy Wonka three-course dinner-gum of England managers, the whole sad endlessly moreish story in a single microdot of folly and greed.

Tags: England Football Sam Allardyce Sport The FA