Sam Allardyce

[inexile]

The point of my comment was that he has lived here and worked in football for a year and seemed to enjoy it. I think if he were to be approached by the panel, his time in Ireland would certainly be something that he would reflect upon favourably and might warm him to the position of national manager.


he never lived in ireland, he used to come into shannon on a thursday evening, stay with billy kinnane who was involved with Limerick at the time and fly home straight after the games whenever they were

[The Owls]

This is just getting stupid, we are becoming just like the british! Ye are all up your own arses, whens the last time Ireland had played flowing football. When we have tried it didnt work! Let give Allardyce a crack. Hes the best option we have out of a very bad bunch, but lets not forget we have been a very bad team for a long long time. Im sick of watching Ireland go out and perform like a bunch of donkeys, We have some good players thats it nothing more. Shays been poor for newcastle hes lost alot of confidence because he plays behind a ****e defence for both club and country. Steve Finnan is well past his best but still good. dyle is grafter nothing special. Thats all we have grafters. Wake up we dont have quality players we need a manager that can get the best out of our team. Allardyce at Bolton.

[eirebhoy]

This is just getting stupid, we are becoming just like the british! Ye are all up your own arses, whens the last time Ireland had played flowing football.
I'm sorry but Allerdyce would probably favour Kilbane, O'Shea and Morrison over Reid, Ireland and Doyle. I certainly couldn't see him playing Reid in central midfield. If there's one thing I care about most it's actually playing a good style of football. I want us to at least do ourselves justice. Fair enough, let's try to beat Italy by pure guts and determination but I want to actually try to beat Bulgaria, Georgia and Cyprus by playing football. I just wouldn't be happy winning ugly knowing we've footballers sitting on the bench. Even if there's more chance of us winning. As a Celtic fan I wasn't over the moon with the win over Shakhtar because it was terribly ugly win and if Nakamura had've been playing I think that would have been a lot different.

[Dr. Ogba]

Failing that, I'd love to see a Houllier/Collins combination - finally a few candidates that we can get excited about.


Collins as in Roddy Collins??? :eek: yer 'avin a laff ain't ya?! :)

Anyway kinda indifferent to Allardyce, haven't really seen Newcastle play this season so can't comment on that but I have to say that Newcastle isn't the kind of club that anyone would turn around in the space of 8/9 months, there are problems far deeper than the dodgy defence at that club.

Like him or hate him he definitely has a better pedigree in the modern game than the likes of Venebles Hoddle Dalglish or McCarthy....

[Oink]

Exactly, who do you think we are?? Do people really think that we could out-play the likes of Italy with our silky beautiful football???

GET REAL

That's the exact attitude that's getting us no-where. Ireland are still under the old english style football influence only because we have adopted and been encouraging that style of football for so long.

When you look at any of the Serbian countires or other small European countries such as Czech Rep, Poland, Finland, Greece etc, who don't even have the resources we do, they bring in managers who adopt a modern approach to the style of football and methods they encourage and in turn do a lot better in international football.

Why can't we beat Italy, sure we may as well not play them at all so and just give them the points....... sure give the players a night off and open up a free bar in lillies with karaoke hosted by Phil Babb?

Any decent team is capable of beating any other team in International football.

It takes time and a good manager to change the style of football a nation plays. but adopting the hoof the ball attitude, in this day and age, is another step in the wrong direction which will only make it more difficult to catch up with the rest of the world (apart from the UK and NI).

####

More on topic: I don't think Allardyce is a hoof the ball merchant anyway, Bolton played some nice football and he picked skillfull players like Anelka, Speed, Campo, Ben Haim, Diouf, Stelios, Fadiga and the one and only Jay-Jay Okocha ... they just scored a lot of goals from set peices and crosses which was just playing their strengths.

The Newcastle job was a bad decision, everyone knows its cursed.... its a club that would take a manager at least 2 years to turn around and even though I don't think they gave Sam enough time, I don't think he was up to it or approached it in the right manner.... but we learn the most by making mistakes and I'd imagine he has been humbled a little and has learned a few lessons.

As far as players not liking him, when the chips are down people don't get along as well as they do when winning... i'd say Allardyce was getting a lot of abuse from the board, something he wouldn't be familiar with from his time at Bolton, and that affected his relationship with the players.

I'm by no means saying Allardyce is a great manager and perfect for the job, but I think he is being judged solely on the Newcastle job and thats not fair. He has an excellent record at Bolton and is by no means a poor manager.

He's not my ideal manager for the job, as I believe we need a european style manager with eurpean football experience, but I wouldn't be too objective if he did get it .... considering the shams who have been mentioned aleady ... cough* cough* Venables.

[ciaraa]

This is just getting stupid, we are becoming just like the british! Ye are all up your own arses, whens the last time Ireland had played flowing football. When we have tried it didnt work! Let give Allardyce a crack. Hes the best option we have out of a very bad bunch, but lets not forget we have been a very bad team for a long long time. Im sick of watching Ireland go out and perform like a bunch of donkeys, We have some good players thats it nothing more. Shays been poor for newcastle hes lost alot of confidence because he plays behind a ****e defence for both club and country. Steve Finnan is well past his best but still good. dyle is grafter nothing special. Thats all we have grafters. Wake up we dont have quality players we need a manager that can get the best out of our team. Allardyce at Bolton.

very good post. personally most people on this thread sound like a bunch of eamonn dunphy-ites.

my only reservation is that allardyce seems like a bit more of a wheeler-dealer thus more suited to club management.

I still reckon he'd be good though... plus he's the last man to get limerick up to the premier too... :)

[amaccann]

This is just getting stupid, we are becoming just like the british! Ye are all up your own arses, whens the last time Ireland had played flowing football. When we have tried it didnt work! Let give Allardyce a crack. Hes the best option we have out of a very bad bunch, but lets not forget we have been a very bad team for a long long time. Im sick of watching Ireland go out and perform like a bunch of donkeys, We have some good players thats it nothing more. Shays been poor for newcastle hes lost alot of confidence because he plays behind a ****e defence for both club and country. Steve Finnan is well past his best but still good. dyle is grafter nothing special. Thats all we have grafters. Wake up we dont have quality players we need a manager that can get the best out of our team. Allardyce at Bolton.

Uhhhhh, no. Arses have nothing to do with this (Delaney aside. Narf). This is about getting bang for you buck. We have a squad of middling to decent players, with some technically gifted ones in the mix. Why must we perennially chase the premiership managers, especially the likes of Sam, or Jewell, or O'Leary because of some belief that we might get above ourselves.

God forbid we indulge in a little confidence in ourselves.

[Stuttgart88]

There's a pretty damning piece on Allardyce in today's Irish Times

Parting of the ways proved inevitable Newcastle manager
Louise Taylor

Divorce lawyers say January is invariably their busiest month, the post-festive period being the time when unhappy couples tend to reach snapping point.

For a manager and a club so patently unsuited as Sam Allardyce and Newcastle United, a run of five games without a win indicated separation could be imminent and it was no real surprise to learn the pair had parted company last night.

Recent suggestions from within the club never rang true that Mike Ashley, the club's billionaire owner, and the chairman, Chris Mort, a corporate lawyer, were determined to think long term and offer Allardyce the time he needed.

Quite apart from the fact that Allardyce was not their appointment - the manager having been hired by Freddy Shepherd, Newcastle's former chairman, just days before Ashley's takeover - ruthlessness is a quality billionaires and partners in leading London law firms rarely lack.

Allardyce did not have the sort of broad vision and thick skin required to manage a club as large as Newcastle. Indeed, his mentality could be described as "small-town", something manifested by his cautious, stifling, tactics and *****liness in the face of criticism.

Whereas at Bolton he had controlled every aspect of the club, at Newcastle he struggled to impose his will on a squad, board, crowd and local media often out of sync with his own philosophies. Tyneside may be less than three hours drive from Lancashire, but Allardyce found the culture shock immense.

His cause was hardly helped by Ashley's somewhat eccentric decision to "totally immerse" himself in the culture of his new club. This involved a man previously known as a recluse drinking with fans in the Bigg Market, wearing a replica shirt alongside the Toon Army in away ends at places like Wigan, and even travelling to games on supporters' buses.

Such journeys will have fully acquainted Newcastle's owner with the word on the street, and Ashley must have learnt that Allardyce's brutally pragmatic vision of the way the game needed to be played did not exactly excite season-ticket holders.

Long balls crashed towards the corner flags as part of a long throw-propelled percentage game may have worked for a while at Bolton, but the stakes are higher and the fans more demanding at Newcastle.

Moreover, there were increasing murmurings of dissent from within a dressingroom in which Michael Owen was understood to be unhappy at receiving too many balls at throat height, and several other players including Emre Belozoglu and James Milner felt Allardyce's strict game-plans were cramping their creativity.

His squad grew bored during interminable team meetings about how "to stop" opponents, and one brave player once asked: "But what do you want us to do when we're on the ball?"

Such caution is all very well if points are being racked up, but Allardyce's spoiling tactics were not very successful.

Bobby Robson became so concerned about the lack of style at the team he once managed that he urged Allardyce publicly to "pass it shorter and play carpet football". As obdurate as he could be arrogant, Allardyce responded by using his regular column in Zoo magazine to opine that people "were talking rubbish" about Newcastle's perceived lack of style.

If Mort and co may have been a little puzzled that their manager chose to earn extra cash from a lads' mag while boycotting the BBC in the wake of his disagreement with Panorama, the board were probably more concerned about Allardyce's burgeoning backroom staff.

Experts were recruited in every conceivable, and often avant garde, area of sports science, but some players privately queried the advice - not to mention numerous supplements - they were being given.

Having eaten bread and pasta during years spent terrorising full backs Damien Duff was told to omit such carbohydrates from his diet.

© 2008 The Irish Times

[drinkfeckarse]

Proof of this would be the fact arguably Newcastle's most technically gifted player, Emre, was left on the bench for most of the season.

While I agree with your point, Emre has underperformed for Newcastle.

Emre has the technical ability to dictate a game but other than a few nice touches and flicks here and there, he consistently stays on the fringes of a game.

[livehead1]

Having read the arguments for and against the potential appointment of Allardyce, I feel it boils down to this;

There are many Ireland fans who believe we have players of good technical ability and want to see good football delivered to them. Are supports of this theory (eirebhoy being one) willing to sacrifice qualification in favour of the side playing nice, attractive football, but ultimately unable to yield results.

The other side to this is that most feel Allardyce could indeed do a decent job for Ireland. But for a bad spell at Newcastle, and lets face it, he's not the only one to have struggled there, his track record is quite impressive. A sustained period of success with a side containg a few quality (Jasskelainen, Nolan, Ben Haim, Diouf), must mostly mediocre players (see Ireland), almost certainly ensure he would do a job with our national side. The question is whether this job, which may involve playing unattractive, long ball, vicious football, is worth sacrificing some of our more intelligent footballers.

My opinion, for what its worth is that I would prefer to be going to South Africa 2010, at whatever cost. We've had enough of failure, and we as fans deserve success, by whatever means possible.

[livehead1]

I don't think Sam would be suited for Ireland. Some of Ireland's greatest strength's is in attack. I think he'd be far better suited to a team of entirely average players like Scotland who need to be taught to play a technical percentage game to frustrate their more gifted opposition. Ireland don't need to play like that.

I could see Sam going very conservative. Carsley and S.Reid in the centre both holding back. Duff and Reid spreading plays on the wing. Ireland further up with the intention that maybe he'd pop up and score against the run of play. Maybe keane on his own up front.

Scotland have a side that is equal if not better than ours. Look at Gordon, Hutton, Ferguson, Brown, McFadden, Maloney to name but a few who would get into our squad, and most of them our team.

[Stuttgart88]

Having read the arguments for and against the potential appointment of Allardyce, I feel it boils down to this;

There are many Ireland fans who believe we have players of good technical ability and want to see good football delivered to them. Are supports of this theory (eirebhoy being one) willing to sacrifice qualification in favour of the side playing nice, attractive football, but ultimately unable to yield results.

The other side to this is that most feel Allardyce could indeed do a decent job for Ireland. But for a bad spell at Newcastle, and lets face it, he's not the only one to have struggled there, his track record is quite impressive. A sustained period of success with a side containg a few quality (Jasskelainen, Nolan, Ben Haim, Diouf), must mostly mediocre players (see Ireland), almost certainly ensure he would do a job with our national side. The question is whether this job, which may involve playing unattractive, long ball, vicious football, is worth sacrificing some of our more intelligent footballers.

My opinion, for what its worth is that I would prefer to be going to South Africa 2010, at whatever cost. We've had enough of failure, and we as fans deserve success, by whatever means possible.

I don’t think your synopsis is quite correct Livehead. It’s just not as simple as “play primitively and qualify” or “play pretty and fail”. In any event, international football is refereed very differently to English football. Rule implementation on the continent has clearly moved to favour skillful players.

An incoming manager must get 2 things right:

Uniting & motivating the squad; instilling confidence
Best utilization of the resources we have, figuring how best to compensate for our weaknesses

My instinct is that until a genuinely competitive central midfielder emerges we may need an extra body in midfield and rely on a lone striker, a breaker from midfield and the wide players getting forward, but all in the context of playing at a good tempo with the ball played to feet.

Allardyce seems to be a “system manager” i.e., he knows how he wants to play and builds his team accordingly. Someone like Houllier would be better equipped to assess what we have and how best to configure the team or attribute roles to certain players.

[ramsfan]

allardyce would bring organisation and thats what we lack and its what young players need . he would do a great job for ireland and he would bring a breath of fresh air to fai, only thing is would fai fund his array of back room staff?

[eirebhoy]

More on topic: I don't think Allardyce is a hoof the ball merchant anyway, Bolton played some nice football and he picked skillfull players like Anelka, Speed, Campo, Ben Haim, Diouf, Stelios, Fadiga and the one and only Jay-Jay Okocha ... they just scored a lot of goals from set peices and crosses which was just playing their strengths.
If he doesn't play long ball football I find it very strange that every one of his Bolton players from last season have a better pass success rate since he left. Their average pass success rate has gone up from 66% to 73%. That's a huge difference. At the same time Newcastle's average pass success rate has dropped from 74% to 71.5%. The sign that the players are obviously trying riskier (ie. long) passes under Sam.

I'm not 100% against Allerdyce though and would take him over most names linked to the job.

[livehead1]

I don’t think your synopsis is quite correct Livehead. It’s just not as simple as “play primitively and qualify” or “play pretty and fail”. In any event, international football is refereed very differently to English football. Rule implementation on the continent has clearly moved to favour skillful players.

An incoming manager must get 2 things right:

Uniting & motivating the squad; instilling confidence
Best utilization of the resources we have, figuring how best to compensate for our weaknesses

My instinct is that until a genuinely competitive central midfielder emerges we may need an extra body in midfield and rely on a lone striker, a breaker from midfield and the wide players getting forward, but all in the context of playing at a good tempo with the ball played to feet.

Allardyce seems to be a “system manager” i.e., he knows how he wants to play and builds his team accordingly. Someone like Houllier would be better equipped to assess what we have and how best to configure the team or attribute roles to certain players.
I'm posing the question of:

Would people prefer to play attractive, pretty football and fail to qualify or would they take long ball, in your face football with a better chance of qualifying?

From reading some peopels opiions, it seems they would prefer the former which has suprised me, although I may have failed to read between the lines correctly!

[Kingdom]

I really don't understand why the players opinions have been sought over the new manager. You appoint the man with the best cv and with a good track record. What you don't do is go and ask a few players opinions about who they would like to see get the job. These are the same players who have failed us over the last 5 years.

Spot on livehead. And these same senior players who may not be around in 3/4 yrs time. It doesn;t make sense to me.

Another thing about Allardyce and the extra staff, is this the same type of approach that the players, wrongly imo, rejected under the Kerr regime. I remember one particular negative Richard Dunne interview shortly after Kerr was released harping on about this thing.

[eirebhoy]

While I agree with your point, Emre has underperformed for Newcastle.

Emre has the technical ability to dictate a game but other than a few nice touches and flicks here and there, he consistently stays on the fringes of a game.
Stephen Ireland is consistently on the fringes of the game too. Emre came off the bench this season, scored a goal and set up another. He started the next game and set up a goal. Again he set up another goal in the following game. He was then dropped to the bench. He has started 5 games this season and set up more goals than anyone else at Newcastle. He's clearly their most creative player imo but that's not good enough for Sam. I'd certainly be fitting Emre in the team somewhere.


I don’t think your synopsis is quite correct Livehead. It’s just not as simple as “play primitively and qualify” or “play pretty and fail”. In any event, international football is refereed very differently to English football. Rule implementation on the continent has clearly moved to favour skillful players.
Exactly. We've outclassed plenty of teams in the last 3 or 4 years by playing pure football. Unfortunately that was mainly in friendlies but I think it's a psychological thing more than the opposition not giving 100%. The win in Amsterdam being the one I mention all the time because Holland did not take that match lightly and we hardly hit a long ball all night. We were class in friendlies under Kerr but the players were extremely nervous when it came to the real thing, especially after we went ahead. We're certainly good enough if we get the right manager.

[amaccann]

I'm posing the question of:

Would people prefer to play attractive, pretty football and fail to qualify or would they take long ball, in your face football with a better chance of qualifying?

From reading some peopels opiions, it seems they would prefer the former which has suprised me, although I may have failed to read between the lines correctly!
Do you believe that the "up and at them" tactic is still viable these days? YOu seem to be saying that this tactic is the only viable one for legitimate success for teams like Ireland?

[Stuttgart88]

I'm posing the question of:

Would people prefer to play attractive, pretty football and fail to qualify or would they take long ball, in your face football with a better chance of qualifying?

From reading some peopels opiions, it seems they would prefer the former which has suprised me, although I may have failed to read between the lines correctly!
If the question was that simple I'd prefer to maximise our chance of qualifying, it's just that I think the question is flawed!

[livehead1]

Do you believe that the "up and at them" tactic is still viable these days? YOu seem to be saying that this tactic is the only viable one for legitimate success for teams like Ireland?

I believe it is still viable, certainly. I also feel it would offer us more of a chance of success than 'playing football'. If we were to 'play football' against each team in our qualification group to the best of our ability and the opposition were to 'play football' to the best of their ability then i doubt very much that we would qualify.

[Stuttgart88]

Let's just assume that Sam or whoever comes to the job gets the playing style right.

Just as important though is the interaction with the players. Big Jack was very authoritative but the players he had were grown ups who could handle his management style.

From the relatively little I know of Sam I think he'd be in the same camp.

How would this go down with the type of personality we have in the team now?

I suspect they'd close up.

I know Houllier had a reputation for poor man management but I think, just like Eriksson seems to have done at City, that his articulate, more measured approach is what these guys would respond better too. In terms of personaility I actually think Jol is the best equipped to get our players united and motivated, I just think Houllier is more adept tactically.

Houllier & Jol are still my top 2 candidates.

[livehead1]

Let's just assume that Sam or whoever comes to the job gets the playing style right.

Just as important though is the interaction with the players. Big Jack was very authoritative but the players he had were grown ups who could handle his management style.

From the relatively little I know of Sam I think he'd be in the same camp.

How would this go down with the type of personality we have in the team now?

I suspect they'd close up.

I know Houllier had a reputation for poor man management but I think, just like Eriksson seems to have done at City, that his articulate, more measured approach is what these guys would respond better too. In terms of personaility I actually think Jol is the best equipped to get our players united and motivated, I just think Houllier is more adept tactically.

Houllier & Jol are still my top 2 candidates.


I feel Kerr was tactically aware and fell into the boat of someone who knew a great deal about the opposition and was very studious in his preparations. We all know what the players made of that approach.

[amaccann]

I believe it is still viable, certainly. I also feel it would offer us more of a chance of success than 'playing football'. If we were to 'play football' against each team in our qualification group to the best of our ability and the opposition were to 'play football' to the best of their ability then i doubt very much that we would qualify.
But I think that is as much a question of confidence as anything else. And not just confidence in the players, but confidence that the tactics and gameplan are there. So even if the tactic is a patient passing game, a middling team will be able to do so & do so well if the manager is doing his job right.

[Stuttgart88]

I feel Kerr was tactically aware and fell into the boat of someone who knew a great deal about the opposition and was very studious in his preparations. We all know what the players made of that approach.

Isn't Sam's approach the same as Kerr's, just even more negative? He spends hours lecturing the players on how to stop the opposition. He has half of Durham's maths department working for Newcastle!

From topday's Guardian / Irish Times, and I read it before too:

His squad grew bored during interminable team meetings about how "to stop" opponents, and one brave player once asked: "But what do you want us to do when we're on the ball?"

[livehead1]

Isn't Sam's approach the same as Kerr's, just even more negative? He spends hours lecturing the players on how to stop the opposition. He has half of Durham's maths department working for Newcastle!

From topday's Guardian / Irish Times, and I read it before too:

His squad grew bored during interminable team meetings about how "to stop" opponents, and one brave player once asked: "But what do you want us to do when we're on the ball?"

I'm not too sure whether the two approaches can be compared. I have a deep rooted feeling that Allardyce could bring us success, more so than most of the other manager's being mentioned for the role. Anyway, he probably wouldn't be interested anyway!!!

Yeh but don't read too much into isolated quotes like that. It's only the other day Nicky Butt was begging the board to stick with him.

[The Owls]

I think we would all agree that we would like to see our team pass like arsenal while winning games away from home, but thats not going to happen, We need a manager that has a game plan. And for this nonsense that players dont like the approach of actually being prepared for a game that might make the difference of going to a major tournament, then our national team is in bigger trouble than we think. These players watch hours of pro zone a week and an hour of watching a bulgaria match isnt too much too ask for. I think Allardyce will play to them teams abilities there will be no Keogh playin right mid or any other shambolic tactics, he will cover players perfromance in their league games. Id sacrifice fancy football for a team to be proud of away from home instead of getting humilated and hurt that we got beaten by Cyprus 5-2. Think its time we got a pro in not a mickey mouse selection. Whether ye like it or not hes managed in supposedly the best league in wthe world and finished 6th with a mediocre team. Whats Hodgson,Venables,and Houllier done with his resources, And as for Newcastle give him another year you would of seen a difference, he inherited a poision chalice!

[livehead1]

It's not so much that, but I think it's more a case of playing like that would be playing to our strengths. Look at our best midfield options. S.Reid, A.Reid, Ireland, McGeady, Duff, Hunt. These are guys who can't defend for the life of them, lets not let their talents go to waste by playing Carsley's and Kilbanes instead of them.

Inadvertantly you have juse made a very good and important point. You have given a list of people you and many others would like to see in the side. You have then given the names of two people who in many people's eyes should not be playing for Ireland. But you're right, the first list of names contain player's who can't defend (although I would disagree with S.Reid who is athletic and gets back and forward). If we were to play all of our creative and attacking players we would get ripped apart. Carsley is a shoe in no matter who comes in. His form for Everton this season has been phenomenal. They can afford to play attacking flair players such as Arteta and Cahill as he is there to protect them. We need a manager who is able to get the balance right. That balance between gun-ho outstanding creativity that fails to achieve 3 points and defensive, long ball, boring football that may get results but is tedious on the eye.

[cavan_fan]

It's not so much that, but I think it's more a case of playing like that would be playing to our strengths. Look at our best midfield options. S.Reid, A.Reid, Ireland, McGeady, Duff, Hunt. These are guys who can't defend for the life of them, lets not let their talents go to waste by playing Carsley's and Kilbanes instead of them.

Please can we all agree that ciaran shouldnt be the next manager.

[eirebhoy]

I believe it is still viable, certainly. I also feel it would offer us more of a chance of success than 'playing football'. If we were to 'play football' against each team in our qualification group to the best of our ability and the opposition were to 'play football' to the best of their ability then i doubt very much that we would qualify.
Why is that? Poland topped a group containing Portugal, Serbia, Finland and Belgium. Their captain is Celtic striker Zurawski and they have him playing in midfield. Rasiak of Southampton is a regular. They've 4 players playing in Ukraine, Belgium, Russia and Austria and the rest are playing in the Polish league who'd all be playing in the top leagues if they got the chance. Poland still play a good passing game.

As I said earlier, if we can outclass Holland, Portugal and Croatia by playing excellent football in friendlies with a weaker team than we have now, surely we can play at a decent standard in the competitive stuff.

[DotTV]

This is just getting stupid, we are becoming just like the british! Ye are all up your own arses, whens the last time Ireland had played flowing football. When we have tried it didnt work! Let give Allardyce a crack. Hes the best option we have out of a very bad bunch, but lets not forget we have been a very bad team for a long long time. Im sick of watching Ireland go out and perform like a bunch of donkeys, We have some good players thats it nothing more. Shays been poor for newcastle hes lost alot of confidence because he plays behind a ****e defence for both club and country. Steve Finnan is well past his best but still good. dyle is grafter nothing special. Thats all we have grafters. Wake up we dont have quality players we need a manager that can get the best out of our team. Allardyce at Bolton.

Where was the graft against Cyprus, San Marino, Slovakia and Wales?

[DotTV]

Having read the arguments for and against the potential appointment of Allardyce, I feel it boils down to this;

There are many Ireland fans who believe we have players of good technical ability and want to see good football delivered to them. Are supports of this theory (eirebhoy being one) willing to sacrifice qualification in favour of the side playing nice, attractive football, but ultimately unable to yield results.

The other side to this is that most feel Allardyce could indeed do a decent job for Ireland. But for a bad spell at Newcastle, and lets face it, he's not the only one to have struggled there, his track record is quite impressive. A sustained period of success with a side containg a few quality (Jasskelainen, Nolan, Ben Haim, Diouf), must mostly mediocre players (see Ireland), almost certainly ensure he would do a job with our national side. The question is whether this job, which may involve playing unattractive, long ball, vicious football, is worth sacrificing some of our more intelligent footballers.

My opinion, for what its worth is that I would prefer to be going to South Africa 2010, at whatever cost. We've had enough of failure, and we as fans deserve success, by whatever means possible.

Big Jacks brand of football was awful to watch and skilful players like Brady weren't used to their full effect...but we won games, qualified for tournaments and now no-one cares about the style of play, we only remember the good times.
I don't care how we play as long as we win. It's been total ****e for the last few years. We need that good feeling of stuffing one of the big teams again.

[The Owls]

Where was the graft against Cyprus, San Marino, Slovakia and Wales?

Probaly still wondering why they where doing keepy uppys for a warm up, Thats the prep they had. I coach an u15s and i would only let them do that for a laugh in a training session. There training was extremely poor. With Allardyce ypu would be guarenteed preparation of the highest quality!

[OwlsFan]

With Allardyce ypu would be guarenteed preparation of the highest quality!

On what do you base that fellow Owl?

Sam couldn't play a long ball with us because we have midgets for forwards unless Alan Lee is brought back. For those who say it was ridiculous to sack Sam after only 21 games, Stan was only given 12. There is no bedding in time allowed for an international manager. They must hit the ground running.

I'd say Allardyce is no worse and probably better than some of the names that are on the short list. I would prefer him to Venables, Brady, Giles, Hoddle and Houllier.

As I said before (at the Brighton Conference): whatever manager we pick, he will come with flaws and baggage. I just pray he doesn't come with a trainload.

[DotTV]

Probaly still wondering why they where doing keepy uppys for a warm up, Thats the prep they had. I coach an u15s and i would only let them do that for a laugh in a training session. There training was extremely poor. With Allardyce ypu would be guarenteed preparation of the highest quality!

Keepy uppy teaches great ball control. Not the thing for full internationals to be doing in a warm but I'd see it as more than just having a laugh for your under 15's! :)

[Wolfie]

But for a bad spell at Newcastle, and lets face it, he's not the only one to have struggled there........

Indeed. Newcastle is the poisoned chalice that other poisoned chalices call "The Toxic one".

[The Owls]

Keepy uppy teaches great ball control. Not the thing for full internationals to be doing in a warm but I'd see it as more than just having a laugh for your under 15's! :)

My under 15's are currently top of the league unbeaten, I would use keepy uppys as a team building exercise with the hidden value of ball control but not on a regular basis. Back to the point we may aswell appoint roddy collins as then atleast the supports will all agree on something! Hes ****e!

[The Owls]

On what do you base that fellow Owl?

Sam couldn't play a long ball with us because we have midgets for forwards unless Alan Lee is brought back. For those who say it was ridiculous to sack Sam after only 21 games, Stan was only given 12. There is no bedding in time allowed for an international manager. They must hit the ground running.

I'd say Allardyce is no worse and probably better than some of the names that are on the short list. I would prefer him to Venables, Brady, Giles, Hoddle and Houllier.

As I said before (at the Brighton Conference): whatever manager we pick, he will come with flaws and baggage. I just pray he doesn't come with a trainload.

Why is everyone thinking allardyce is going to play long ball. Hell play to the ability of the players i didnt see much long ball at Newcastle or Bolton, Myth made up the lies of arsene wenger and jose who couldnt physically match his team. And Owls Fan Jewell played a very small part in wednesday demise. It was all Danny Wilson!!!!!!!

[eirebhoy]

Then how do you explain the stats? How have Bolton gone from an average of 66% pass success rate to 73% since Sam left? I wouldn't mind if Bolton were really struggling last season but they finished 7th. It's pretty obvious to me that they're trying to keep the ball on the ground a lot more this season. Sam was succesful with the long back at Bolton but as I said, I'd rather we played our most technically talented players.

[Block G Raptor]

What a lot of People on here are missing, is IMO the single most important atribute which Sam would bring to the Job and that for me is personality. He has what it takes to motivate the Player's, the Fans and I think the media would also take to him, for me it's a toss up between Houllier and Sam. with Sam just shading it

[Philly]

Why Sam over Houllier?

One has won loads, the other done grand at Bolton but when it came to managing a team with real expectations flopped.

So far the only manager being linked to the position that is anywhere near world-class is Gerard Houllier.

[Block G Raptor]

Why Sam over Houllier?


Because (http://foot.ie/showpost.php?p=850924&postcount=190)

[Sligo Hornet]

I think we are getting carried away in our notion that any of the "good canditates" ( including Sam ) will automatically be interested in us......none of them need the money ( all get great compo packages when sacked ) and they know they just have to bide their time before someone else gets the boot at a Club they like, and then throw their hat into that ring.

[NeilMcD]

Because (http://foot.ie/showpost.php?p=850924&postcount=190)

How do we know this is true.

[passinginterest]

What a lot of People on here are missing, is IMO the single most important atribute which Sam would bring to the Job and that for me is personality. He has what it takes to motivate the Player's, the Fans and I think the media would also take to him, for me it's a toss up between Houllier and Sam. with Sam just shading it

I don't but into the players liking him thing at all.
It was fairly well known that he wanted to get rid of Given at Newcastle, hardly going to motivate him. The Times article linked earlier also suggests that Damien Duff wasn't exactly delighted with his methods and diet changes.

[Oink]

What a lot of People on here are missing, is IMO the single most important atribute which Sam would bring to the Job and that for me is personality. He has what it takes to motivate the Player's, the Fans and I think the media would also take to him, for me it's a toss up between Houllier and Sam. with Sam just shading it

Yeah thats great... an when he leaves its all back to square one with nothing learned.

We have young squad and the most important thing for the new manager to do is impose an attitude to play the modern international game. We lose most internationals becuase we have no game plan, no ethics and no idea of ourselves. The approach to the modern international game has changed and we haven't caught up. With such a young squad we have an excellent oppertunity to instill a new approach to the way Ireland play and are percieved.... we need the right manager though.

Ireland have never encouraged the development of young players in regards to the national squad, we always check who's big at premiership club level and draft them in.... look at any of the other small Central European sides who don't have the resources of the top international sides, they have focused on the development of their international side by adapting to the way modern international football is played and coached a style of football begining at underage sides all the way through to the senior squad. They don't have great players but they know how to play, how to work as a team and know their roles.

When the french where at the height of international success, did you ever wonder why? It's because they worked hard for years on the development of underage players with focus on how football has changed. The same happened with dinamo kiev at club level under Valery Lobanovsky, who pretty much set the standard for modern european caoching.

Not one player who has been brought through the senior squad has developed well and progressed at international level for Ireland over the last 10years... We need to build all the way through from youth level and progress.

[paul_oshea]

lads some good posts here, makes ye think outside the box a bit :) :!

[DotTV]

My under 15's are currently top of the league unbeaten, I would use keepy uppys as a team building exercise with the hidden value of ball control but not on a regular basis. Back to the point we may aswell appoint roddy collins as then atleast the supports will all agree on something! Hes ****e!

Maybe we should appoint you! ;)

[The Owls]

Maybe we should appoint you! ;)

Ill do it for €100 a week and ill even bring me own bibs!:)

[Block G Raptor]

Ill do it for €100 a week and ill even bring me own bibs!:)

Are you steve staunton by any chance

[The Owls]

Are you steve staunton by any chance

No i have completed the FAI Kickstart courses!:)