I think in his prime he was definitely underated, and you take him on knowing what he does, which is what we did and he did what was expected. He was one of the first managers to employ a stat crunching company and his backroom staff is huge - he brought 15 with him to Goodison.
Big Sam's gift is that he can get bang average players to play together as a team well enough to stop leaking goals. The cost in doing that is that there is no grace or beauty in the football. Big Sam should not be let loose anywhere near a decent "football playing" side, because he will destroy the soul and culture of the club.
But you won the first leg, and they played Rylan. So are you saying you only have 3 decent players, and without them you are basically ****?
He didn’t do that at Bolton. He had Okocha and Djorkaeff in the team. Do you know anything about football?
You've gone from 'We will be City's closest challengers this season' to 'We're going to win the new stadium cup'
You idiot. Bolton was one of the worst sides ever to disgrace the Prem. The most boring match I ever saw was Saints v Bolton.
Yeah, needs must. He proved at Bolton that given access to decent players he was prepared to play decent football. He’s definitely a pragmatist and realised that the best way to keep smaller clubs in the PL is to play attritional football. That’s why he’s never been relegated whereas someone like Hoddle has.
