Have to admit I've never bought into the whole 'Allardyce only plays ugly football' line, and have always found that a really lazy criticism of him. Ok, he's no Pep Guardiola, but during his time with Bolton he had Jay Jay Okocha and Youri Djorkaeff in his midfield - hardly a couple of kick and rush sloggers. I rather like the guy personally
You're right that it's lazy and especially the "only plays ugly football" is far too black and white. Allardyce is undoubtedly a very talented manager (you won't see any PL team get relegated with him at the helm I reckon) and I find him entertaining in his press comments and his Metro contributions. However, the problem with Allardyce is that he is good at making himself an object of mockery (e.g. with the Allardici comments), though that partly makes him likeable. Also, while he's tactically astute and able to change styles, he is very much a safety first manager. His teams do resort to ugly football regularly (because it works). He is also very much a supporter of the "percentages game" - if you read some of the things he has written, it's all about getting the right numbers of balls into the box. So while it's unfair to label him as just simply a proponent of the ugly game, he is definitely the polar opposite of, say, Wenger.
By the way, there seems to be an incorrect inference that I dislike Royals poems and have something against them. Its his view of football that I disagree with.
Well it´s not the first time you´ve disagreed with someone on here about their view of football, and I´m damned sure it won´t be the last - anyway, be boring if we all agreed all the time.
