Sam Allardyce’s parting message as he headed out of the West Bromwich Albion exit door was a significant one. It mightn’t have been for a while, but the former Everton manager has previous – and successful – Championship experience. He knows what is required and, having worked with the Albion squad for the last six months, Allardyce knows the scale of the job in hand. Asked straight up at the time exactly which boxes Albion needed to tick in their managerial head hunting mission, Allardyce answered quite plainly.
Sam Allardyce said: “You’ve got to look at what success they’ve had, wherever that might have been, whether that’s in the lower divisions or in this league itself. I still think it’s risky sometimes taking a foreign manager in this league to try to get up in your first season unless he’s a foreign manager who’s already in this country. If he knows about this country and the way it works that might be an option but to bring somebody in without experience is a lot more risky than somebody in this country, either British or foreign, that already knows the way it works here. And I think it’s more about sustainability and building because only one in three clubs go up on average in their first year. So it may take a bit longer and that’s why I’ve suggested it’s not for me because I’m not long-term anymore.”
Sam Allardyce reinforced that view in his statement: “I believe the club now needs stability and continuity and this would, in my opinion, best be provided by a young and ambitious manager who can get us back to where we should be as an established Premier League football club.”
The process continues. Chris Wilder has his admirers within the walls of The Hawthorns, but so do Michael Appleton and Frank Lampard.
