Leicester City’s title win was every bit the fairy story, as was Wales’ run at Euro 2016, but England displayed their unerring ability to ruin the moodThe year 2016 was a terrific one for the Premier League and a terrible 12 months for English football. Leicester City’s title success was every bit the fairytale, the perfect antidote to long-held and justifiable fears that ordinary clubs could no longer dream of glory as the bigger institutions and the Champions League elite had effectively ringfenced all the prizes worth winning. Related: A 2016 football moment to remember: Dejan Lovren sets the Kop on fire | Paul Doyle Arsenal and Tottenham are particularly guilty of dithering instead of cashing in on managerial changes elsewhereI've...
Palace have taken drastic action to ensure they stay in the Premier League but the man they have lined up to replace Alan Pardew brings a history of suspicionSurvival in the Premier League is everything but even though he undoubtedly represents the best chance of Crystal Palace extending their stay in England’s top flight for a fifth successive season, the impending appointment of Sam Allardyce to replace Alan Pardew at Selhurst Park is one that will fill many supporters with dread.It is less than three months since Allardyce was ousted as the England manager before he had even named his second squad as the result of the Daily Telegraph sting that showed him negotiating a fee of £400,000 to represent...
Allardyce has never been relegated from the top flight in his managerial career, which makes him a natural choice to succeed Alan Pardew at Crystal PalaceThere will be no need for a public outcry should Sam Allardyce, as is widely anticipated, return to management with Crystal Palace before the year is out. The same year when his long-held ambition of becoming England manager was realised and then curtailed a mere 67 days later, the shortest reign of any permanent Football Association appointment, after being in charge for a single game. Allardyce is simply too capable an operator to stay out on the sidelines for long.That was what earned him a crack at the England job in the first place and...
England will have a third manager in three games at Wembley on Saturday – at least the latest man in the job can hardly fare worse than his immediate predecessor Sam Allardyce“Bring it on, lads,” Sam Allardyce exclaimed at a press conference three days after accepting the job of managing England. So they did. And 64 days later he was gone.The “lads” had wiped him out, turning him into a candidate for a spectacular entry in the Guinness World Records. Allardyce became the recipient of the largest amount of money ever paid to a man for supervising a single game of football: about £550,000 in salary over the two months, plus a reported £1m in “compensation” for £6m he had...
It’s a really troubling conclusion but is backed up by the fact that the best we can do in terms of home-grown options is a mere handful at mostly struggling Premier League clubsWhat a thoroughly depressing week for English football. By the end of it there was almost a feeling of relief at the Daily Telegraph’s investigation turning up a few more names, because it allayed the suspicion that the object of the whole exercise from the start had simply been to bring down the England manager.While that false impression prevailed there had been a certain amount of sympathy for Sam Allardyce, on the grounds that entrapment should be used only as a last resort to bring criminality to light,...