Blame Allardyce mate. I never believed he would stay with us. And dont forget how miserable his signings were. Defoe kept us up, not Allardyce. Allardyce has a place in our history, but was never an answer for us really.
Have to be mate, £25m is not to be sniffed at for a championship player. Surely one of the biggest fees ever at this level for a player who’s not just been relegated? Can’t think of many going for that money. Watkins and Benrahma maybe? Alex Scott and Wharton close too
We were that much of a mess behind the scenes it would have come crashing down regardless I think in reality, allardyce would have walked had England not come calling anyway
String and sticky tape job at that time mate. Awful looking back, barring obviously relegating our pals up the road. Bare light of day the writing was clear as day on the wall.
Give over After the January transfer window, Allardyce had us really solid and tough to beat - exactly what’s needed to avoid the drop. We played some cracking stuff in the second half of the season. Allardyce done a great job to keep us up like. Defoe definitely wasn’t the reason.
Ballard signing again is stunning business. If Neil commits too then it’s hard not to trust what’s going on behind the scenes, no need for him to sign through out his prime years when he’s arguably close to the prem step up. Good stuff
I agree with you on most of that and you may well be right. However it's the money that's the temptation to a great degree imo. A player like Clarke signing for Forest, Ipswich, Wolves, Brentford, etc, is likely to be in some kind of relegation battle. All three promoted clubs took some real batterings last season and no one wants a miserable first season in the PL. I love Clarke, as a player, but I don't think he's good enough to sign for any of the clubs fighting for Europe ... ... everyone else is only a bad run from relegation as Leicester recently demonstrated.
No way would Allardyce have stayed very long even without England! I remember him looking pissed off in the interview he did during the training camp they did abroad. Iirc he made it clear wasn't happy that the club weren't spending like he wanted. I'm convinced he would have either walked or been sacked after a falling out with the club!
Definitely. It was clear as day Allardyce wasn’t happy that summer before he left for England. He was desperate to sign another forward to play alongside Defoe. Edin Dzeko and Diafra Sakho were both heavily linked…
I disagree. He did bring us Khasri, Kone and Kirtshoff (sp) Those three certainly weren’t miserable signings in the January window - in fact I’d say it was those signings who kept us up
Yep, bang on. Dame N’Doye came in too. He certainly wasn’t great but he played his part. It was an excellent January window overall…
Allardyce was useless when he arrived. He had no impact on the current squad. A couple of signings produced a burst, and Defoes individual quality. Those players he brought in who added something showed up terribly after the so called great escape. For me he is a small tick in our history, but he gets a free hit for a lot of people.
He does from me tbh ... ... did what he was asked to do and gave us some great memories. He is what he is and I think we all knew it was just a shot in the dark. Same goes for di Canio, that 3-0 at SJP is easily in my top ten over half a century.
After January it was class and I was convinced we were going to get some stability. Then that interview in the summer came and I was worried it wasn't going to go well, then England came. Now looking back I think even if he had stayed it wouldn't have been much better than just surviving.
…most of us thought the same after we’d just stuffed Everton 3-0. Horrible what happened in the months and years after that but we’re definitely recovering now. Ha’way the lads
