As a radio co-host Allardyce was far from tactically rigid and it is delicious to imagine him beating Pep Guardiola in his first game
A couple of weeks before the start of the season, the Guardian Football Weekly panel were asked for our most outlandish predictions for the season. Barry Glendenning suggested Liverpool wouldn’t make the top four. Jonathan Wilson thought there was a good chance of Roy Hodgson coming out of retirement and ensuring Crystal Palace’s survival. Philippe Auclair was confident Chelsea would spend half a billion pounds on attacking midfielders, sack Thomas Tuchel and then Graham Potter and bring in Super Frank Lampard to oversee a 100% losing record.
These predictions all seemed far-fetched, but not ridiculous. It was then I argued that in early May Sam Allardyce would claim to be on the same level as Pep Guardiola and Jürgen Klopp while criticising the criminal justice system for not releasing Sammy Lee from jury service to help him try to keep Leeds in the Premier League. Listen back – pretty sure they all made the edit.
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