Sunderland has not been, on the whole, a happy club in recent years. Managers have come and gone, all of them grimly struggling to keep this grand old club of the north east afloat in the Premier League. The fans give a lot, and demand a lot back.
The list of managers who the job has burnt out in recent years is growing; Roy Keane, Steve Bruce, Martin O’Neill and Gus Poyet. With Dick Advocaat the latest man to step away from the helm at the Stadium of Light, the call went out for someone who would guarantee Premier League safety, as near as possible. Step forward big Sam Allardyce, a man who has never been relegated and never intends to be.
The larger-than-life Allardyce will sweep into the club like a blast of clean spring air, and I believe will not take long at all to make an impact on the club, the team and their results. Allardyce has, after all, been here before, several times actually. There are those who say he’s never been involved in a relegation battle, who say he does not have the experience of what it’s like to be right down the bottom of the league. To a certain extent, this is actually true.
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However, the only reason Allardyce has never been at the bottom of the league is due to his almost uncanny ability to keep these unfashionable, not particularly large clubs in the top half year after year. Bolton, Blackburn, West Ham… the list goes on. All were clubs that required stability and consistency above all; Big Sam certainly gave them that.
He got Bolton and Blackburn in to Europe – that takes some doing. He was unceremoniously sacked by Newcastle after not having had long enough in the job to properly prove himself. At West Ham, he was charged with getting them back to the Premier League – he did so. His job was then to keep them in the Premier League – he did so.
He also guaranteed them top half finishes, and made sure that Hammers fans did not spend the spring months endlessly worrying about relegation. They might not have liked him or particularly appreciated the brand of football he brought to Upton Park, but they certainly respected him.
While the parting of the ways at the end of last season probably came as a relief to many West Ham fans, there will no doubt have been some who understandably felt a little nervous at this departure from the security of Allardyce’s style.
In short, Allardyce guarantees organisation, immense work ethic, discipline and as much defensive solidity as he can possibly whip into his players. While there is no doubt that the task awaiting him at Sunderland is immense, he can perhaps take heart from the fact that he has performed similar miracles with teams where the players were of a similar calibre before, notably at Blackburn where with a distinctly ordinary squad they regularly finished in the top half.
The defence at Sunderland in particular will of course be his main concern, but if even his powers are not enough to turn Younes Kaboul into a Premier League quality defender (that’s a little harsh possibly since the other members of the back four haven’t set the world alight this season either), he has shown plenty of times his willingness to dip into the loan market or transfer market in January to come up with a cunning solution.
Knowledgeable, canny, organised, positive and above all hard-working, Sunderland could not have hoped for a manager with as much nous and as much experience at taking un-fancied teams to league positions far beyond their expected level.
If Allardyce can pull this particular rabbit out of the hat, and I see no reason at all why he should not, it will all just be another chapter to add to the legend of Big Sam.
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