Why BBC Need to Apologise to Big Sam

Filed in archive Managers on October 26, 2007

Opinion is divided on Sam Allardyce. Some people think he's a coaching genius, others think he's a stubborn, argumentative big mouth. I think he's both. Never been a fan of his tactics (defend well, play long balls to a big man, practice set pieces till your eyes hurt) from an aesthetic perspective, but you can't argue with their effectiveness. Just look at the difference between Big Sam's Bolton and Little Sam's Bolton. What I do enjoy is his straight talking.

Consider his recent quote about why Newcastle crowd favourite and England Under-21 captain Steven Taylor was dropped:

"He will be very frustrated at the moment," said Allardyce, "but it's not about me dropping players, it's about players dropping themselves. They played crap at Manchester City. If you play that badly, you're likely to lose your shirt. Players have to realise that one poor performance can cost you your place."

But wait, it gets better...

"He needs to be able to read the game. You can't rely on your physical qualities to get you out of trouble. He's got me and Nigel Pearson here to coach him and we were two ugly bastard centre-halves, so that helps.

I still think the headset looks silly, but you've got to love it when a manager talks so openly about what a player's done wrong, what he needs to do to improve and how it's going to happen. The worst thing the BBC did was to annoy Allardyce with all those Panorama allegations so much that he no longer talks to them. Match of the Day could do with a few of Big Sam's post match interviews to liven up the Alan and Alan dull-fest they've got going on.