Official - some people can't let Sam Allardyce go (counselling available, reasonable fees.)

Lukerz

;sofa

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

;thumbsup

Ravel49

This place just isn't the same without him.... ;wink

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

"I thought if I played fair with them, they would do the same for me. I didn’t want any agitators who were constantly moaning"

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

"But I did warn them, if you stay but don’t try and you waste my time, then we will have a problem and I’ll dump you with the mushroom squad.’ The mushrooms were those who did your nut in, so they trained at other times to the first-team group. They were so named because you kept them in the dark, brought them out now and again if you needed them, then put them back in the dark again until they left. Freddie Piquionne, the French striker, got the full mushroom treatment with garnish from me and didn’t seem to care. It became a joke that if you were exiled, you weren’t being mushroomed any more, you were being ‘Piquionned’

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

;biggrin

Sarawakammer

What did he call "being Maiga'd" then?? Having the mushroom compost thrown all over his (SA's) head?

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Basically just "rubbish" ;biggrin

To be honest, he doesn't go into detail about Maiga, he does say he signed him and that he just never dealt with the physical side of the PL and it didn't work out.

Regarding the Bony possibility. He says that both him and Sullivan sat down and went over the stats and the numbers, they both agreed to go for Carroll over Bony, it wasn't just Sullivan wanting Bony, Sam wanting Carroll.

Also, Steve Bruce warned SA what Gold & Sully were like, not in a negative manner, he praised them and the way they support their managers, but regarding Sully sending 20 emails a day and wanting an answer to everyone of them, Bruce told SA to ignore them, all, otherwise it just generates more "noise" and you never get anything done. He also mentioned about Sully wanting the imput into transfers.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

They were also due to sign Jordan Henderson and Downing at the same time as Carroll, but it never panned out.

Also, Rodgers told SA that he would never of sold Carroll to WHU if he'd known that his deal for another player hadn't fallen through at the last minute (Can't remember his name, it will come to me)

MrsGrey

Interesting. ;hmm

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Clint Dempsey (I think)

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Also Rodgers wanted to get rid of Jose Enrique and SA wanted all 4 of them if we had the money.

He says it was sullivan who was prepared to take the risk on Rav. Based on SA previously being able to straighten out other players in the past.

woosie

Like Joey Barton?

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

I'm not sure many have tamed Joey Barton, so nothing unusual there. Probably meant from his Bolton days.

Oh and the online forum that Lynne, Mrs Allardyce used to read........KUMB

TwistandShout

Sam's doing well ;biggrin

buffybegood

So glad he's gone, in his interview after losing to Liverpool he says of the goal

"I suppose I look to blame somebody"

That sums it up to me, he always looked to blame someone and never accepted responsibility for bad results or performances himself.

Interview:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/35202176

grey_til_I_dye

buffy

That's your impression, but it isn't supported by the pesky facts.

buffybegood

grey_til_I_dye said:

buffy

That's your impression, but it isn't supported by the pesky facts.

Does the fact that he repeatedly blamed players in post match interviews not count as pesky facts? Words straight from his own mouth don't count as pesky facts?

We'll have to disagree on this one.

grey_til_I_dye

buffy

Well, they would if that is what he had done.

You think that's what he did, but I don't believe you'd find a lot of evidence for it.

It's one of those things that people 'know' without it actually being true.

So yes, we will have to disagree.

Lukerz

I do think he has a tendency to blame things out of his control (missed chances, poor defending, crowd negativity, referee etc), but I'm sure he has also shown times when he does accept responsibility.

grey_til_I_dye

Lukerz

How is that 'blame'?

if a player misses a sitter, or gives away a bad pass to let a player in to score, how is referring to that 'blaming' as opposed to 'ruing'?

How many times have people on here pointed out poor refereeing decisions recently?

Is it OK for fans, but not managers?

I take it anyone on here praising our performances of late by referring to injuries is also 'blaming' them in that case.

As Slav pointed out after the Soton game, it was the players that got us back in to the game, but the corollary is that they were the ones who got us in to the mess in the first place.

Slaven_Cups_His_Beard

Think the problem with Sam a lot of the time is the way he "words" things. He's old school in that area. He comes across that way in his book, he tends to use "I" instead of "we" a lot. He also has a lot of confidence in his own ability (not a bad trait to have) plus he just seems to be a "Speak my mind, say what I like, like what I bloomin well say" type of bloke to a point........

Trouble is, whatever he said about WHU during his reign or even after he went, so many got so precious about some of his quotes. All the while the media were quoting his book and it was being serialised then I wondered what the full chapter/subject looked like and it's no surprise they took the "shock" pieces and ran with them.

When you read the entire book and see the context a lot clearly of some stuff, he hardly ever slaughtered anyone at the club. He see's it as black and white, results, points, promotion and stay up, that appears to have been his list of goals, so that's what he did. He talks about the play-off win as one of his finest achievements and he also says we over achieved massively in the first season, which didn't help with the expectation in the following seasons (that I agree with 100%).

He didn't help himself in the begining, with some of the things he said, no doubt had he worded those things better, it could've been a slightly better relationship with some of the fans, however I'll always believe that no matter what he did or said, even if he told them they were the worlds greatest fans everyday, there was a group that refused to 'take to him' in any shape or form, they'd already made their minds up and had their agenda from the minute he was appointed.

Look at the match day squad for our first game back in the PL vs Aston Villa


Jussi Jaaskelainen
George McCartney (O'Brien 71)
Guy Demel
Winston Reid
James Collins
Mohamed Diame
Kevin Nolan (Tomkins 73)
Matt Taylor
Mark Noble
Carlton Cole (Maiga 81)
Ricardo Vaz Te

Substitutes
Stephen Henderson
Nicky Maynard
James Tomkins (Nolan 73)
Alou Diarra
Joey O'Brien (McCartney 71)
Modibo Maiga (Cole 81)


Look at the team we have now.....

Adrian
Tomkins
Reid
Collins
Cresswell
Kouyate
Noble
Carroll
Sakho

The spine was all built or made better during the Sam era and has now been complimented with the likes of.....

Obiang
Payet
Antonio

(and that's not including loans of Jenks, Song, Moses and Lanzini in both pre and post era's)

From day 1 for me, he will always was and will always be, a means to an end.

;ok

SuzanneClaret

He is a mug of builders tea in a world of frothy lattes.

Lukerz

Genuine question, aimed at everyone.

Now, at the half way point and based on what you've witnessed so far, was the decision to part with Sam the correct one?

IronHerb

YES! (Even without witnessing what we have so far)

TwistandShout

SuzanneClaret said:

He is a mug of builders tea in a world of frothy lattes.

With sugar in it and you're allergic to sugar ;whistle

Expat_Hammer

You know, I sort of get this strange feeling that Twist doesn't, or in fact never has, been too happy with BFS as our manager ;whistle

Lukerz

Corresponding fixtures comparison (I have replaced the three promoted sides of Bournemouth, Watford and Norwich with the three relegated sides of the previous season, with Bournemouth being Hull because Hull finished highest within the bottom three, and AFCB won the Championship etc):

2014/15; 2015/16

Arsenal 3-0 West Ham; Arsenal 0-2 West Ham
West Ham 2-0 Leicester; West Ham 1-2 Leicester
West Ham 3-0 Hull; West Ham 3-4 Bournemouth
Liverpool 2-0 West Ham; Liverpool 0-3 West Ham
West Ham 1-0 Newcastle; West Ham 2-0 Newcastle
Man City 2-0 West Ham; Man City 1-2 West Ham
West Ham 2-0 QPR; West Ham 2-2 Norwich
Sunderland 1-1 West Ham; Sunderland 2-2 West Ham
Crystal Palace 1-3 West Ham; Crystal Palace 1-3 West Ham
West Ham 0-1 Chelsea; West Ham 2-1 Chelsea
Burnley 1-3 West Ham; Watford 2-0 West Ham
West Ham 1-2 Everton; West Ham 1-1 Everton
Tottenham 2-2 West Ham; Tottenham 4-1 West Ham
West Ham 1-1 WBA; West Ham 1-1 WBA
Man Utd 2-1 West Ham; Man Utd 0-0 West Ham
West Ham 1-1 Stoke; West Ham 0-0 Stoke
Swansea 1-1 West Ham; Swansea 0-0 West Ham
Aston Villa 1-0 West Ham; Aston Villa 1-1 West Ham
West Ham 1-3 Southampton; West Ham 2-1 Southampton

2014/15 total points = 23
2015/16 total points = 29

So Slav is doing six points better than Sam from the same games. So all this "we're worse off than at this stage last season" is rubbish, because we're 2 wins better off.

So it's looking good as long as Slav avoids a disastrous second half of the season.

grey_til_I_dye

Lukerz

It's not exactly rubbish, though, is it?

It's simply how one chooses to look at things.

After the first 19 games last season we had 31 points, this year it is 29.

That's easily as valid a comparison as yours.

As to whether it was the right decision, I'd say more that it wasn't (at least so far) the wrong one.

TwistandShout

Expat_Hammer said:

You know, I sort of get this strange feeling that Twist doesn't, or in fact never has, been too happy with BFS as our manager ;whistle

What gives you that impression? ;whistle