Yesterday, this writer wrote a piece about why Big Sam Allardyce is the perfect choice to be England manager as he knows exactly who he is, and as, a result, his team will know exactly how they will play. This is unlike Roy Hodgson, who attempted to please everyone to the extent his England team looked like a distant relative of Frankenstein's monster.
This opinion was, to be fair, based on Allardyce's own vision of himself. Allardyce has always defined himself as being different to the foreign managers in the Premier League. In his book, for example, Allardyce described himself as "some oik from the Midlands" in opposition to Rafa Benitez.
We cannot imagine Big Sam having much truck with Arsene Wenger either, particularly when he told L'Equipe last year that "I am a facilitator of what is beautiful in man". We feel that if Big Sam thinks there is anything beautiful in man, it has been recently-digested.
This image of Big Sam has been blown apart, however, by this single picture of him on his way into his interview for the England job. Take a look:
Forget everything you think you know about Sam Allardyce!
That's a £1k Louis Vuitton man-bag, say @MailSport👜 💷
😮😮 pic.twitter.com/I4bl3iPNob— Robert Summerscales (@robsummerscales) July 13, 2016
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a man-bag, but to see Big Sam rocking one is surprising. Louis Vitton's target audience is generally not believed to encompass "oiks from the Midlands".
(As an aside, Allardyce revealed in his book that his interview for the England job ten years ago was scuppered by virtue of the fact that the F.A. did not have an overhead projector, meaning that he had to print out copies of his PowerPoint presentation. We assume he is confident the association has got one since, as not a whole lot of information would fit in that man-bag).
Elsewhere, Phil Brown has said he hopes to link up with Big Sam at England. Brown is currently the manager at Southend, and is quoted in The Bolton News as saying that
If your country comes calling, it’s a no-brainer and I would love to be involved as well if possible. I would absolutely walk on broken glass for that chance. You name it, I would do it, to the benefit of me, obviously, but also for the benefit of the country.
How could anyone say no to their country? You could do it as a dual role but the FA probably wouldn’t be interested in that. They’ll want 100 per cent commitment to the country.”
Please, make it happen.
