Allardyce piles pressure on Sullivan

Former West Ham manager has piled on the pressure on West Ham chairman David Sullivan insisting he often tries to coerce managers into signing players they want.

Allardyce told talkSPORT: “[Sullivan’s] a strong man when it comes to signing the players he wants, I know that for a fact.

“Sometimes [the owners] will try to bully you into a player they fancy. But you have to stay strong and try to get on with it.

“Sometimes I think his love for football is so great, David Sullivan, he spends the vast majority of his time researching footballers across the world through other sources.

“Sometimes those sources are good, sometimes they’re not so good.

The response comes after the 71-year-old Co-Chairman told Jim White a day earlier on Talksport “We’ve now got the funds to buy a player or two; unfortunately at the moment the players the manager wants, we can’t get. The manager will be spending 18 hours a day looking at tapes trying to find players. I’m waiting for targets from the manager; we’ve got two or three bids in, and unfortunately the benchmark is very high and it’s very hard to get those players.”  adding

“I can’t just go and sign two or three players the manager doesn’t want. I could quite easily tomorrow go and sign two or three players but we’d have a civil war at West Ham, because I don’t pick the players. We have a manager who is a manager, not a coach; if he was a coach I could do that, but that’s not the way it works at West Ham – the managers pick the teams. I cannot say for sure we are going to sign anybody. As each day passes, I get more depressed.”

This is not the first time Allardyce has spoken on the subject, in January this year Big Sam told Alan Brazil on Talksport “David (Sullivan) will have his own mind on his own players, we all need to work hand in hand I found with dealing with David when I was there was the order of the day.

You get the odd present from David now and again, where he fancies it so brings him in anyway, so you have to live with that  He doesn’t mind that and he says “I have got you a little present” but you just hope it works.

He just turned up pre-season and says “I fancied this one;” it’s always a centre forward, one that scores goals which is fine because you think  you can come and score goals. 

Asked by Alan Brazil what happens if you don’t play him Sam smiled and said “You get the can for that!” it’s your coaching techniques not bringing the best out of him. I am not naming names, no I am not” 

This isn’t the first time the former manager has spoken out on David Sullivan’s approach to the recruitment policy which has upset to so many.

ClaretandHugh says: His love of the odd South American – who could forget Jonathon Callieri – is legendary and has been of little help in producing squads of any serious consequence. It is of course opportunistic for Allardyce  be repeating his Hammers experiences but Sullivan’s decision to try and excuse his position on talkSPORT deserves all it gets. We have said before how utterly absurd and indefensibly he acted but in one respect it has helped the ‘GSB out movement considerably. Many, who had previously attempted to remain balanced in their approach to the situation, were disgusted that he should act in such a way and it’s still a matter of amazement that he thought he might help himself.With outspoken people such as Allardyce a regular on talkSPORT it truly was the height of stupidity and the question isn’t so much will he leave as when which bothers most now including all of us at CandH.