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Long, but worth reading. Apparently, the author is not a Hammer 
West Ham fans made their feelings clear following the vital win over Hull City last night, but the playing style employed by the manager is hardly unexpected.
In a season of countless shocks and incongruous surprises, a season that contains a Manchester United that has never looked so dreadfully incompetent to a large number of young fans and in which Liverpool have risen to become the league’s irresistible force, last night yet another first occurred, at least in my experience, when Sam Allardyce’s West Ham United were vociferously booed off the pitch following their match at home to Hull City. Despite claiming all three points and reaching a points total that will help see them safe when the season’s denouement rolls around in May, the fans had seen enough. Allardyce’s petulant reaction, cupping his hand to his ear in the manner of a player who was celebrating netting in a particularly hostile away stadium, had the patently guilty air of a man who knew he’d finally been rumbled. The game was up, the booing signalled; even victory and eventual survival couldn’t compensate for the primitive tosh that had just been served up against a team that had played with ten men for over an hour.
34 points after 31 games – the average points required to avoid relegation is 35 in the Premier League era, so West Ham are essentially one more draw away from retaining their status as a top division club – mean yet another feather in the already bursting cap of Allardyce, the number one Premier League Survival Specialist. In the Zombie apocalypse of tumultuous relegation battles, ‘Big’ Sam has fortified the farmhouse, has a cellar bursting with supplies, a military-strength arsenal of high-powered weaponry and is quite possibly synthesising the antidote. He has endured the 38-game marathon in the uppermost division of English football with four different clubs, all of which are regularly associated with the threat of relegation, and not once yet suffered its ignominy. Like the lone landscape oil painting on the hallway wall; timeless yet dated, forgotten yet plain to see, becoming more and more sun-bleached with each passing summer, he is an inexplicably immovable object. The Premier League’s stone in the shoe.
However, the capacity to remain that permeates his sides, the unwillingness to yield, comes at great cost. A trade-off, if you will; one that perhaps most would think fair and be entirely willing to accept. Yes, the fare for the annual great Allardyce survival ride is the loss of your football identity. History is whitewashed, mavericks are sidelined and flair diluted until your club resembles an identikit Allardyce blueprint for scraping into the Premier League for another twelve months. Here comes a joyless facsimile of the previous season – disappointingly tedious, predictable football. Wishing the season away and ticking off the games. The complete opposite of why you started going to football in the first place.
Back at the turn of the millennium, the notion of a swashbuckling Bolton team charming it’s way to a mid-table finish begins to take form in the memory thanks to rose-tinted revisionism, but it was, essentially, the exact same formula as recent Allardyce years with a few of extravagant add-ons. Youri Djorkaeff, Ivan Campho and Jay-Jay Okocha were all brought in at extraordinarily low prices and each had an Indian summer, autumn and Christmas rolled into one. But the blueprint had been drawn – a narrowly solid defence and midfield, a hulking attacker who wins two-thirds of the long balls thrust up to him and some willing midfield runners who were able to deliver the occasional 30-yard screamer or deliver an ingenious set piece.
Some top-ten finishes lend the era a sense of lofty achievement, and with such a cobbled-together squad Allardyce certainly deserves credit for installing consistency and obduracy on such a meagre budget. They narrowly lost the League Cup final in 2004 to Middlesbrough, a run that saw them defeat Aston Villa and Liverpool in to-and-fro encounters, and competed in the UEFA Cup for two consecutive seasons. But one feels that he was seduced by these successes, embracing a style and direction that would become the bedrock of his approach for years to come. Kevin Davies was the archetypal Allardyce centrepiece; foul machine, regular channel of the aerial attack, sporadic goal-scorer. No other player has conceded as many free-kicks as Davies in the history of the Premier League. For a striker, intermittently involved in the action, this is a spectacularly inane achievement.
Once Allardyce left Bolton in 2007, Newcastle appointed him in the wake of Glenn Roeder’s departure. Promising early signings seemed to signal an attacking intent. The marauding Jose Enrique, the incendiary Joey Barton and Alan Smith from the respective Manchester clubs and the talented Geremi being captured from Chelsea helped to make up an exciting initial influx of playing personnel. Soon, however, disappointing results coupled with dour tactics got the Newcastle fan base on his back and Mike Ashley swung his perennially razor-sharp managerial axe, less than eight months into their relationship.
A spell at Blackburn followed from 2008 and Allardyce again drew some good performances from the squad initially, finishing 15th in his first season and 10th the year after. That summer, he ensured his name was circulated in regard to the England job, with Fabio Capello on thin ice following possibly the worst ever World Cup campaign for the England team, but the Italian steadfastly remained in his post. The following season brought some of the most hilariously narcissistic comments you might ever have heard from the mouth of ‘Big’ Sam, when he claimed he should be managing clubs of the calibre of Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United, and the title would be guaranteed every season if he were in such a position. Unfortunately for him these calls were not answered and when Blackburn were taken over by Venkys, the Indian Chicken giants, neither did they share Sam’s confidence and he was dismissed in December 2010.
It is widely-known that West Ham United are a club that insist on excellent football. When Allardyce first took over in the close season in 2011, a number of promises were made to the East London faithful. The traditions of the club were to be respected. Attractive football was on the agenda. Claims that he’d played long-ball football for a number of years were vigorously opposed, but it wasn’t difficult to see what was forthcoming when several members of Allardyce’s Bolton brigade were enlisted for the promotion push, achieved via the playoffs in his first season at the club. But Allardyce is nothing if not consistent; almost immediately, it was my-way-or-the-M25, defend in vast numbers and send the ball into the stratosphere. The big man at the epicentre of the attack, balls invariably jettisoned in his direction like objects entering the earth’s atmosphere and gravitating to his elevated bonce, almost forgetting what the texture of the grass feels like.
And here we are now. Widespread revolt, even in triumph – an absurdity in any other circumstances. The boos and jeers heard at Upton Park last night would leave a lot of managers in a state of contemplation and self-reflection, but not Allardyce. There is a consistent refusal to acknowledge errors, with the blame for defeats being publicly shifted onto individuals. When addressing the media, never is a mistake accounted for personally. West Ham – everyone’s second team, the neutral’s team, famed for attractive, passing, youth-focussed football; reduced to a bland, anachronistic mess. The affair with Ravel Morrison, with Allardyce talking about non-existent injuries amid claims of him trying to coerce Morrison to change agents, do Allardyce no favours, most obviously in that his most talented player was initially marginalised and has now been sent out on loan to Queen’s Park Rangers. Their manager, Harry Redknapp, is the ideal boss for the troubled Morrison –the ultimate man-manager, the Sultan of sanguine sensitivity, the Mahatma Gandhi of moddycoddling. An arm round the shoulder, a whisper in the ear in that affable Cockney brogue and players feel like an adopted son, contented and playing like a dream, which for the most part is the case for the 21-year-old at this moment.
And so the Hammers will rumble on, and once Premier League survival has been inevitably confirmed this season will be given a new slant; one-dimensional football coupled with inconsequential matches. Managers often talk about it being a results business, and Allardyce has now delivered the results. With no obligation to offer up anything different, and zero inclination to do so, games with no real significance replace games of vast importance but with the same dour approach. The reasons to not purchase a ticket are now twofold.
West Ham are going to occupy the stunning Olympic Stadium in a couple of years. Akin to using a Formula One race car for a lifetime of popping down the shops, if Allardyce remains in charge the crowds will likely reduce from here and the stadium will seem cavernous (at least Tottenham, whom they were competing with for the opportunity to call the stadium home, are a laughably entertaining side for different reasons). The majority of West Ham fans I have spoken to are caught in the perennial Allardyce conundrum: Premier League survival, at the cost of your footballing soul.
Ah well, there’s always next season.
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West Ham fans made their feelings clear following the vital win over Hull City last night, but the playing style employed by the manager is hardly unexpected.
In a season of countless shocks and incongruous surprises, a season that contains a Manchester United that has never looked so dreadfully incompetent to a large number of young fans and in which Liverpool have risen to become the league’s irresistible force, last night yet another first occurred, at least in my experience, when Sam Allardyce’s West Ham United were vociferously booed off the pitch following their match at home to Hull City. Despite claiming all three points and reaching a points total that will help see them safe when the season’s denouement rolls around in May, the fans had seen enough. Allardyce’s petulant reaction, cupping his hand to his ear in the manner of a player who was celebrating netting in a particularly hostile away stadium, had the patently guilty air of a man who knew he’d finally been rumbled. The game was up, the booing signalled; even victory and eventual survival couldn’t compensate for the primitive tosh that had just been served up against a team that had played with ten men for over an hour.
34 points after 31 games – the average points required to avoid relegation is 35 in the Premier League era, so West Ham are essentially one more draw away from retaining their status as a top division club – mean yet another feather in the already bursting cap of Allardyce, the number one Premier League Survival Specialist. In the Zombie apocalypse of tumultuous relegation battles, ‘Big’ Sam has fortified the farmhouse, has a cellar bursting with supplies, a military-strength arsenal of high-powered weaponry and is quite possibly synthesising the antidote. He has endured the 38-game marathon in the uppermost division of English football with four different clubs, all of which are regularly associated with the threat of relegation, and not once yet suffered its ignominy. Like the lone landscape oil painting on the hallway wall; timeless yet dated, forgotten yet plain to see, becoming more and more sun-bleached with each passing summer, he is an inexplicably immovable object. The Premier League’s stone in the shoe.
However, the capacity to remain that permeates his sides, the unwillingness to yield, comes at great cost. A trade-off, if you will; one that perhaps most would think fair and be entirely willing to accept. Yes, the fare for the annual great Allardyce survival ride is the loss of your football identity. History is whitewashed, mavericks are sidelined and flair diluted until your club resembles an identikit Allardyce blueprint for scraping into the Premier League for another twelve months. Here comes a joyless facsimile of the previous season – disappointingly tedious, predictable football. Wishing the season away and ticking off the games. The complete opposite of why you started going to football in the first place.
Back at the turn of the millennium, the notion of a swashbuckling Bolton team charming it’s way to a mid-table finish begins to take form in the memory thanks to rose-tinted revisionism, but it was, essentially, the exact same formula as recent Allardyce years with a few of extravagant add-ons. Youri Djorkaeff, Ivan Campho and Jay-Jay Okocha were all brought in at extraordinarily low prices and each had an Indian summer, autumn and Christmas rolled into one. But the blueprint had been drawn – a narrowly solid defence and midfield, a hulking attacker who wins two-thirds of the long balls thrust up to him and some willing midfield runners who were able to deliver the occasional 30-yard screamer or deliver an ingenious set piece.
Some top-ten finishes lend the era a sense of lofty achievement, and with such a cobbled-together squad Allardyce certainly deserves credit for installing consistency and obduracy on such a meagre budget. They narrowly lost the League Cup final in 2004 to Middlesbrough, a run that saw them defeat Aston Villa and Liverpool in to-and-fro encounters, and competed in the UEFA Cup for two consecutive seasons. But one feels that he was seduced by these successes, embracing a style and direction that would become the bedrock of his approach for years to come. Kevin Davies was the archetypal Allardyce centrepiece; foul machine, regular channel of the aerial attack, sporadic goal-scorer. No other player has conceded as many free-kicks as Davies in the history of the Premier League. For a striker, intermittently involved in the action, this is a spectacularly inane achievement.
Once Allardyce left Bolton in 2007, Newcastle appointed him in the wake of Glenn Roeder’s departure. Promising early signings seemed to signal an attacking intent. The marauding Jose Enrique, the incendiary Joey Barton and Alan Smith from the respective Manchester clubs and the talented Geremi being captured from Chelsea helped to make up an exciting initial influx of playing personnel. Soon, however, disappointing results coupled with dour tactics got the Newcastle fan base on his back and Mike Ashley swung his perennially razor-sharp managerial axe, less than eight months into their relationship.
A spell at Blackburn followed from 2008 and Allardyce again drew some good performances from the squad initially, finishing 15th in his first season and 10th the year after. That summer, he ensured his name was circulated in regard to the England job, with Fabio Capello on thin ice following possibly the worst ever World Cup campaign for the England team, but the Italian steadfastly remained in his post. The following season brought some of the most hilariously narcissistic comments you might ever have heard from the mouth of ‘Big’ Sam, when he claimed he should be managing clubs of the calibre of Inter Milan, Real Madrid and Manchester United, and the title would be guaranteed every season if he were in such a position. Unfortunately for him these calls were not answered and when Blackburn were taken over by Venkys, the Indian Chicken giants, neither did they share Sam’s confidence and he was dismissed in December 2010.
It is widely-known that West Ham United are a club that insist on excellent football. When Allardyce first took over in the close season in 2011, a number of promises were made to the East London faithful. The traditions of the club were to be respected. Attractive football was on the agenda. Claims that he’d played long-ball football for a number of years were vigorously opposed, but it wasn’t difficult to see what was forthcoming when several members of Allardyce’s Bolton brigade were enlisted for the promotion push, achieved via the playoffs in his first season at the club. But Allardyce is nothing if not consistent; almost immediately, it was my-way-or-the-M25, defend in vast numbers and send the ball into the stratosphere. The big man at the epicentre of the attack, balls invariably jettisoned in his direction like objects entering the earth’s atmosphere and gravitating to his elevated bonce, almost forgetting what the texture of the grass feels like.
And here we are now. Widespread revolt, even in triumph – an absurdity in any other circumstances. The boos and jeers heard at Upton Park last night would leave a lot of managers in a state of contemplation and self-reflection, but not Allardyce. There is a consistent refusal to acknowledge errors, with the blame for defeats being publicly shifted onto individuals. When addressing the media, never is a mistake accounted for personally. West Ham – everyone’s second team, the neutral’s team, famed for attractive, passing, youth-focussed football; reduced to a bland, anachronistic mess. The affair with Ravel Morrison, with Allardyce talking about non-existent injuries amid claims of him trying to coerce Morrison to change agents, do Allardyce no favours, most obviously in that his most talented player was initially marginalised and has now been sent out on loan to Queen’s Park Rangers. Their manager, Harry Redknapp, is the ideal boss for the troubled Morrison –the ultimate man-manager, the Sultan of sanguine sensitivity, the Mahatma Gandhi of moddycoddling. An arm round the shoulder, a whisper in the ear in that affable Cockney brogue and players feel like an adopted son, contented and playing like a dream, which for the most part is the case for the 21-year-old at this moment.
And so the Hammers will rumble on, and once Premier League survival has been inevitably confirmed this season will be given a new slant; one-dimensional football coupled with inconsequential matches. Managers often talk about it being a results business, and Allardyce has now delivered the results. With no obligation to offer up anything different, and zero inclination to do so, games with no real significance replace games of vast importance but with the same dour approach. The reasons to not purchase a ticket are now twofold.
West Ham are going to occupy the stunning Olympic Stadium in a couple of years. Akin to using a Formula One race car for a lifetime of popping down the shops, if Allardyce remains in charge the crowds will likely reduce from here and the stadium will seem cavernous (at least Tottenham, whom they were competing with for the opportunity to call the stadium home, are a laughably entertaining side for different reasons). The majority of West Ham fans I have spoken to are caught in the perennial Allardyce conundrum: Premier League survival, at the cost of your footballing soul.
Ah well, there’s always next season.
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