"Why's it always got to be a foreign manager" is back in vogue. Paul Merson was widely pilloried for his angry assault on Marco Silva's appointment to Hull City last year, complaining that British coaches don't "get a chance" in the English game. With well-renumerated managerial vacancies opening up at West Ham and Everton of late, Sam Allardyce has been stopping off at various television studios spouting exactly this. He turned up on Match of the Day on Saturday night dressed as an airmail envelope.
He had presumably been freshly delivered from his appearance with Keys and Gray on Bein Sports, where he delivered some classic lines under the "why's it always got to be a foreign manager" genre:
You are almost deemed as second-class because it's your country, today.
It's a real shame on the fact that we're highly-educated, talented coaches with nowhere to go.
The Premier League is a foreign league in England, now.
And on Match of the Day, he was given the same opportunity:
It’s always time an English manager was given the chance, as far as I’m concerned Gary, or a British manager – there’s no doubt about that. And there’s not enough of us given the chance.
David Moyes popped up on the same channel with Keys and Gray this weekend, in which he made clear his own employment preferences: 'Ooh, I'll manage Scotland later on, but for now I'll take the West Ham job thank you very much'. This is the channel where this plays best, with Leicester's recent appointment of Claude Puel met with a tweet from Keys that read, "RIP British coaching".
Few "second class citizens" are given quite so large and consistent a platform to declare their interest in high-profile jobs.
As of today, it looks like David Moyes and Sam Allardyce will know their engagements for the end of this month: both will be facing off against each other as managers of West Ham and Everton respectively. (Against sides both have previously coached!)
Therefore, when they do meet we should pause to observe the fact that this notion that "British coaches are second-class citizens in England" expounded by Allardyce is self-serving bollocks.
Should both men get their jobs, nine of the twenty jobs in the Premier League will be occupied by British or Irish coaches.
That's not a bad figure, and hardly indicative of discrimination based on a coach's nationality. But if you press the likes of Big Sam on this issue, he will make reference to the biggest jobs in England not being handed to British coaches. And while all of the top six are currently coached by Johnny Foreigner, this has not always been the case. Brendan Rodgers, David Moyes, and Tim Sherwood have all been handed opportunities to take over at the top. Of those three, only Rodgers' time at Liverpool could be considered as anything approaching success.
There are a couple of reasons as to why this hasn't happened more regularly.
First of all, in a competitive environment, it is foolish to think that clubs would appoint managers based solely on the fact that he happens to have been born in England. A lot are simply not proven for the job. The tasks for managing at the biggest clubs are very different to managing even in the lower reaches of the Premier League. Zinedine Zidane's pacifism means he is the perfect coach for an institution as dysfunctional as Real Madrid, but may not be a coach to trust in the cut and thrust of a relegation battle, wielding little other than a relatively low wage bill.
Sean Dyche and Eddie Howe have done very fine jobs at Burnley and Bournemouth respectively, but this is no guarantee that they could transfer these skills to be effective amid the peculiar singularities of the biggest clubs, be they demands stylistic or results-wise, juggling a critical European game between two important league games, or dealing with the egos of elite professionals who require the highest level of coaching to push beyond the diminishing returns of their talent. Perhaps they could, but they cannot prove they can at their current clubs.
In the ever-widening gap between the top six and the rest of the division, it is increasingly difficult for the managers of the fourteen other clubs to prove they have the skill set necessary to take over at the top. Mauricio Pochettino has proved he can, but he is the exception that proves the rule. Just because his path has been successful does not mean it will be for everyone: David Moyes' failure at United is the cautionary tale.
Perhaps they would be better served looking abroad for the next step, at a level higher than what they are currently at but below the vertiginous standards of Manchester, Liverpool, North London or Chelsea.
And the second reason that British coaches do not get the opportunities? Sam Allardyce is probably right about "not enough of us are given a chance". But he's partly to blame here.
Since June 2015, there have been 27 managerial appointments by clubs in the Premier League (excluding the addition of existing managers from promoted clubs). Of these appointments, six have gone to British managers. Two of those have been Allardyce. (The others: Shakespeare, Moyes, Hodgson, and McClaren).
If he was truly concerned with promoting job prospects other than his own, perhaps he would take a step back.
