Sam Allardyce is a manager I would not want anywhere near my football club. His style of play would just depress me watching it week in week out and his constant moaning would drain even the most optimistic of football supporters.
On Thursday night I had the misfortune of driving back late from Heathrow with a broken ipod in the car. I decided to listen to Talksport (I know!) and they were talking about the appeal that had just failed over Andy Carroll's red card last weekend following the incident with Chico Flores.
Much was written here at the time around Chico's reaction to the incident but Carroll's arm did swing around and I would be pretty certain there was intent when he did it to - after all Carroll has form for that kind of thing (remember his assault on Garry Monk at the Liberty?) and it fits perfectly one of the ways that Allardyce plays the game - physical! It was interesting to hear the West Ham fans who all sounded clinically depressed which I can only assume is a reflection of the way that they have to watch football every week.
So no surprise the appeal failed - not once but twice - but Big Sam just cannot let it go as he remains bitter about the incident and unable to accept that everyone else sees it a different way. So now he has turned back to Chico Flores and is blaming him for anything that suits his argument.
Swans manager Michael Laudrup was sacked after the 2-0 defeat at West Ham and that, according to the wacky world of Sam, is down to Chico's actions at Upton Park. "He has allowed people to say to players ‘you can get away with simulation to get someone sent off or get a decision in your favour’, that is clear for all to see on what happened. When you see it after there is little or no contact and it is nowhere near his face, so it is a shame." wittered the big man
"The other scenario that he must feel a lot more guilty of is he has just got his manager sacked.”
I am not sure that Michael's sacking will be down to just that one particular incident and if it were then I suspect we would be massively critical ad aggrieved of the decision. This is just a big man throwing his toys out of the pram after categorically being proved to be wrong.
Of course as well Sam forgets that his side are quite capable of their own simulation and maybe he needs to take a look at the likes of Kevin Nolan as one classic example of a player who likes to play his part in getting others into trouble. Nobody is condemning Chico for the way he reacted but at no stage would it have played a part in the sacking of our manager.
Sam would be better going away and just accepting that if you swing an arm around at pace then it will almost always be judged as intent and maybe he needs to have a word with his player rather than worrying about what is going on elsewhere.
Meanwhile we have more important things to concentrate on.