This is my take on the whole Allardyce situation. I imagine this’ll turn into quite a long post, up to you if you bother to read it or not.
I’m not anti-Allardyce, I’m not an OTT cheerleader for him either, but I do back him. The one thing I always try to be is fair and reflective on everything, and I am also not beyond changing my mind if the evidence is there to prove me otherwise.
I have two main issues with those shouting for Allardyce’s head:
- 1. 99% of those who are critical of him, didn’t/don’t apply the same criticisms to Koeman or Martinez.
- 2. 99% of those who are critical of him, steadfastly refuse to change their opinion even slightly, despite being presented with evidence showing otherwise. I often see the phrase “I will never ever back him”, which is ridiculous. I’m certain we could have won every game 3-0 in style since he took over and people would still want him out.
I was never, ever a fan of Koeman. I said from day 1 he had nothing substantial behind him (in the PL or a major league). He had zero discernible style. You could not see what he wanted his team to do, other than stop messing about with it like RMs teams did. He had Lukaku, Coleman, Baines, Barry, Barkley, Gana (the good one), Schneiderlin (the excellent one) Jags (before he aged overnight) all fit and playing well, as well as a few other promising or good players and we finished 7th which was not a massive achievement, nor should it have been this season. We should have sacked him after Atalanta beat us in October. The upcoming fixtures were clearly unwinnable with that side, nor did the club expect to win them (Moshiri’s unexpected losses comment). We went on falling even further away from top 6, and crashing out of an easy Europa League group, and the squad looked more and more downtrodden. That left us with a manager who had won 2 in 14 or similar, from what I recall which you can’t accept when having spent what he had. As I say, it was foreseeable at least 6 weeks earlier, so as well as Koeman, it is just as much the fault of the club (Owner, CE, Chairman, Dof) for letting it escalate to the point of desperation.
This is where the real damage was done this season. Yet, most fans think Allardyce has ruined our season.
Some of what I see/hear about the whole situation and Allardyce, and why most of them are absolutely ridiculous:
“We were never going down”
Maybe, maybe not. We can only speculate now, but that team in Aug-Nov was getting walloped almost weekly. It was devoid of confidence, and as soon as we went behind we looked every bit a side that belonged in the bottom 6. You cannot risk that. At ALL costs, you have to remain in the Premier League. By saying this, I am in no way saying that is our target each year, of course not. I am saying that from the position we were in, you could not risk it. Look at Sunderland. Their CEO has just admitted the owner lost interest the second they were relegated from the PL. A year later, they are in L1.
“Silva/Unsworth/etc would have easily kept us up”
Again, we can only speculate.
I do think any good manager would have kept us up. However, Silva was a no, and then there were no clear candidates elsewhere with the record of Allardyce. Certainly none that were available mid-season who would join a relegation battling side.
That Unsworth could have kept us up is laughable in my opinion. I like the guy, I’ve met him a few times, he’s really sound, massive Evertonian. No doubts about that.
But if we’re truthful, the U23s is on par with Conference in terms of standard. He has done well and is learning, but the leap is massive, and he hadn’t gotten any real, noticeable improvement out of the side. I know we’ve only ever won with an ex-player as manager, but the idea that being an Evertonian somehow raises someone’s ability or competency is insane.
“He only plays long/hoof ball. Always has, always will”
He doesn’t, he hasn’t. He has shown over his managerial career he has built teams that play in a number of different ways. Bolton were excellent at times, with Okocha, Djorkaeff, Campo, Anelka, Speed, Stellios all playing some very good football. Palace played with pace and width, using Zaha, Townsend, Puncheon to find the space behind the fullbacks. Sunderland had Kirchoff, Khazri and Watmore playing some excellent passes for Defoe sitting on the shoulder.
I can’t deny that he has used/relied on Kevin Davies or Andy Carroll as a target at times, but he hasn’t done this at every club and every game. Also, if it works, what is the problem from time to time? We never minded when Fellaini would control a 50 yard pass on his chest, which we played for a large portion of his time with us. I still hear people rave about when we beat United ONE-NIL wow!!! when we spent 90mins pumping it to Fellani, that was 6 years ago.
Other than getting rid when under pressure in defence, we don’t look for the long pass as the first option. Listening to most of the fans, you would think we were Wimbledon in the 90s. We more often than not look to play through the midfield. How much this season have we lamented Rooney or Davies for losing possession? All the bloody time – that’s because they are trying to play through the middle!
I do agree that when things aren’t going well, he does revert to basics very quickly. Probably too quickly, when a few tweaks will probably do.
“He’s done his job, now time to go”
My mate is a store manager at a department store and a massive Allardyce critic. I’ve asked him previously, imagine if your gaffer transferred you to a bigger store that was currently failing, and he asked you to stabilise it and improve the store. Imagine you did the first half immediately, produced good results and put the store back closer to where it should be. Then before you had chance to take the next step that you had earned, your gaffer sacked you.
Is that fair? Or is it personal?
“He isn’t respectful enough to be an Everton manager / He talks sh!te”
I gave up listening to what managers say long ago. I recommend it; it is better for your blood pressure, and you spend less time fuming about minutia rather than concentrating on where the real problems lie in a football club.
99% of the time what he says is bollox, or a diversion. Simple as that. Loads of managers do it.
People were criticising SA for slouching in a presser. Grow up and stop being so precious. One of the most common phrases on this site about the RS is “offended by everything”, but as soon as SA says something you don’t like the fume is unbelievably OTT.
And as I say, this level of scrutiny was never, ever applied to Koeman. It was to Martinez, but only at the end when we started losing. If you’re going to apply this sort of judgement, it needs to be consistently done, rather than picking and choosing when. If you don’t, it shows the bias behind you doing so.
After Spurs when he said we needed to be less attacking after we hadn’t had a shot; this was a classic example of people jumping on a comment of his and not taking any context into account.
Clearly, he was suggesting we tighten up and don’t attack in the open manner we did, because we did try to that game, and every time we went forward they picked us off. If we had remained tighter, then it wouldn’t have been a slaughtering. I know no-one wants to play that way or watch it, but as I keep saying, this side is not good enough currently to open up like that against any decent side.
“Look at the state he leaves clubs in”
Man leaves job, where an Owner, Chairman, Chief exec, DoF, and 20+ professional players remain, and it’s still his fault? That doesn’t make sense. If anything, he has shown that he has kept clubs above their true places for his tenure. He hasn’t bought and left dozens of aging journeymen at the clubs. That is a myth – check out the average age of the squads if you don’t believe me.
“He hasn’t improved us”
He has. We are the 6th best team since he took over. I know the football isn’t entertaining, but he is playing with a team that isn’t his. He has brought in two players who have arguably turned us around.
This side gets carved to bits when we try to play a bit more open. Koeman and Unsworth proved that up until end of November. We started solidly under Allardyce. The fans clamoured for us to be more exciting, he let us play a bit more and we got walloped again. He has shut up shop since which is totally the correct thing to do, until the summer when he gets to overhaul the squad and train them for 6 weeks uninterrupted which isn’t possible during the season – especially during Dec/Jan when he took over and there was a huge fixture list.
“Only improved because of Baines and Coleman coming back”
Coleman would improve almost any side, so can’t argue against that.
But Baines went off injured in the utterly embarrassing Southampton game which was next to last for Unsworth. Allardyce is the only manager of the 3 to have not had Baines available.
“Gravy”
F*** me, this is so infantile and tbh, if you can’t converse about the subject without referring to such things, I can’t take your opinion seriously.
“You accept mediocrity”
No I don’t. I am a realist. You can’t just tell this side to go and play attacking football and it will see us break the top 6. This side gets bummed when it tries to do that. Because of the above points, if SA stays I don’t believe we’ll see a team of this style next season. I’ve seen enough of his sides over the years to show me otherwise, rather than just following the narrative around him.
There is a massive overhaul needed to get this squad to stage where it is good enough to challenge the top 6. Trying too much too soon does not work. That’s what happened with Leeds and Villa. They got a sniff of the big time and splashed the cash and didn’t have the foundations or long term plans in place, managers changed, players left, owners got bored.
We need to be patient. We need stability to get us back to being clearly “the best of the rest” next season, with the aim being we close the gap to the top 6, rather than be 20 points behind them. Only when we are in that sort of position can you really think about attacking the top 4/6.
It seems that the main reason behind not wanting Allardyce changes all the time, which is why I find it hard to believe that it is anything but personal behind these reasons.
In January it was “He always changes the team”. Massive fixture pile up, which when it eased off, we saw a much more settled team. This was pretty clear to see (if you weren’t looking at it with anti-Allardyce tinted specs).
Then it was that Klaasen wasn’t getting game time, despite clearly not impressing 3 managers and a whole crowd early season (yes, he was poor back in Aug/Sep, you can’t conveniently forget that). Then Vlasic until last few weeks, when btw, Vlasic has been average at best.
And now, that results have translated into form, it is the style that is the problem.
It seems that as soon as one problem is fixed by Allardyce, another is created, just so there is something to keep berating him with.
Also, every positive we’ve had since he took over is always described as inevitable, or in spite of Allardyce, yet every fault we’ve had has been described as definitely his. It can’t be both. It just can’t work like that. If you think this way, then you are biased and cherry-picking facts to suit.
I know he has made faults, some big ones. Arsenal was unacceptable, as he knew we wouldn’t win so he made the changes and didn’t prepare us properly. He stuck with Ashley Williams for far too long. Bolasie shouldn’t ever get a game. He shouldn’t ever have been at Everton at all, but I felt like a lone voice when I said that when Koeman signed him for £28m.
On the opposite side of these faults though, he was getting the best we’ve seen out of Sigurdsson, he’s brought Schneiderlin back to being a good PL player, he’s gotten a half decent player out of Keane.
Like it or not, we have a game plan now. We stay tight, compact, and focussed. The score lines at HT show that. You can lose the game in the opening half very easily, which is what happened early on in the season far too often. Regardless of style or game plan, we have been the 6th best team in the league since he took over and we rarely look out of control in games now.
I am confident that if he stays for next season, we will not see a team of this mould. He’s astute at getting the right players and moulding them into a playing unit.
He has done what he needs to for this season. If he does carry on in the same manner next year, then yes, absolutely make the change. But only if we can get a guaranteed winner in, who has the experience in a major league.
Personally, I’d want much more security than gambling on Silva. Other than an impressive CL campaign, Fonseca hasn’t shown all that much IMO either. I don't know who I'd want tbh.
I believe Allardyce can easily get us 7th next season, and he can do it whilst closing the gap to the top 6. At that point, we are much, much more likely to attract the type of manager we crave. Currently, we have little chance.
Anyway, that’s me done - suppose I best get some work done this morning.
