Me?? Lord Allardyce of Dudley?? Alone with West Ham's Academy graduates for two years?? With my reputation??? (Apologies to 'The Fast Show') This is not the appointment I was hoping for. I would frankly rather see us playing proper West Ham football in the Championship than see us reduced to endless diagonal floated longballs in the Premiership. God help us. Suppose we should give him a chance, but I am really not hopeful that under Big Sam we will maintain our footballing principles. Gold and Sullivan recently promised us that this was a priority. Appointing Mr Allardyce just doesn't bear out that promise. So, we will, most likely, start our time in the Olympic Stadium with Allardyce. The Olympic motto is "Citius, Altius, Fortius" meaning "Faster, Higher, Stronger". Well, I think we can rely on "Higher" at least as regards how we'll be passing it....
I'd rather someone sorted out our defence first and worked up from there. Personaly I feel Big Sam gets a lot of unfair criticism, does no one remember the Bolton of Okocha, Djorkaeff & Campo? at Newcastle he was doing what needed to be done, and the same at Blackburn. We've tried to play 'attractive' football and it usually gets us demoted, whereas the boredom of Curbishley saw us mid-table. We desperatly need a manager that knows what he's doing and has the force of personality to get the best out of what he has. Hopefully he'll have the resources at his disposal that he needs.
This "academy" thing at WH is a load of bull. They've not won the FA Youth Cup since '99, and I don't remember them ever playing a possession game. BFS won't have them playing too differently to how they've played in recent years, with the added bonus of being resilient and getting results.
