Yes it was great…well at the least the second half was after the manager had got after the players and changed things around.
And he was spot-on in his assessment that the victory against Burnley was based on the right and left sided defenders, Carl Jenkinson and Aaron Creswell who answered his call to get into threatening positions and find some real quality crosses.
Enner Valencia then showed he’s as great in the air as he is on the ground with a magnificent top corner header whilst Diafra Sakho scored a beauty.
Naturally, it didn’t take the Match of the Day lads long to start asking where the “Sam Out Brigade” had got to – and that of course was repeated on Twitter.
Let’s deal with that once and for all and attempt to take the discusssion out of the simplistic ‘ love him or hate him ‘ arena.
I for one, despite many accusations to the contrary, do not hate Sam Allardyce. I just hate BAD FOOTBALL and that was what we were watching last season.
This season – after a summer when fans, board, and the manager and his coaching staff all had their input – we are watching some of the best football we have seen in many years at the Boleyn.
So well done Sam, well done Macca, well done Teddy, well done the Davids and well done the fans for insisting that we saw a return to the West Ham Way which quite simply is this – a passing and creative game with goals at the end of it.
Sam Allardyce and his staff get a ten out out of ten for producing a system that is thrill-a-minute stuff for most of the time.
Sam gets judged at personality level as well. Some love him – some hate him as a bloke. There’s an arrogance and obstinacy in there and occasionally a tendency to take credit when things are going well and to criticise players when it goes wrong.
Even that has changed a bit this season and that’s to the good. But whether we warm to him as a bloke is unimportant. only the end product matters.
West Ham United are emerging as a serious force this year – we are beating the teams we should beat and raising our game sufficiently to get results or play with great credit against those. who are supposedly at a higher level.
So can we now just get on with it, free ourselves of the “told you so” culture and unite behind the manager, staff, board and team. Now I know that’s quite a revolutionary suggestion 🙂 but it’s perhaps worth a try.
COYI!
BFS out!
The point with the “Sam out” argument that’s being missed by such informed ‘pundits’ is where would West Ham be if it hadn’t been for the stance the fans took last season?
My hunch is that we’d still be playing Andy Carroll football without Andy Carroll. Not sitting 4th in the league playing the most exciting football for many a year.
Yes Allardyce has done a good job, and I have no problem in stating that. However we all know as fans that the changes we have witnessed this season were enforced, first from the fans and ultimately the Board.
….yes and the big worry for me is that if/when Carroll finally gets himself fit he’ll be straight back into the team and we’ll lapse back into playing ‘goofball’ with Nolan lumbering after the knockdowns.
When I wrote ‘goofball’ I obviously meant ‘hoofball’ – fat fingers!
The elephant that has been in the room, that ALL of the “BFS OUT” brigade miss Constantly is….
What a difference having a transfer budget makes???
If I was a chef and had to serve you a three course meal, with a loaf of bread and a tin of baked beans, what do you think I would serve up?
A touch of realism is required from more than a handful of so called supporters who almost sabotaged our survival hopes.
Wrong! Only 5 m more was spent this year to last. 31m to 26m
Well I guess you may be right, but perception (as in the case of the critics) is EVERYTHING!
When the managers job comes up again (and I’m sure it will). I’d like to see you have a go, it would be interesting to see what you’re made of, put under the same pressures.
I was brought up to give credit where its due & to put myself in the position of the person being criticised. Let’s NOT be shy about it either, this is the man who SAVED the club!
The chairman are piling on the credit, on his shoulders as have ex-players alike. I’m sure they have a better idea of what it takes and what’s going on at the club.
I said my piece. You seem to have missed rather a lot of it
Apologies Hugh as I have duplicated much of what you said and it pays not to have sunken a few before in my prolonged celebrations 🙁
But the point I want to make is too the many who think of Big Sam as a one dimensional character who isn’t capable (despite his experience) of putting a team together to play exciting football. I have supported West Ham for well over forty years and have seen both the highs and lows and not since the team that Harry built have I been so excited about this new era. Not only because we have a manager who is capable, but more importantly we have British Chairmen, who not only Support the club, but are also backing the club financially and have given us a legacy (OS) which will take us into the next century & give the club the potential to be one of the Biggest in London & the country!
I hope ALL the people who call themselves supporters get behind the club 100% & not look for pants villains so that this club can recognise it’s great potential.
COYI
* Panto not Pants
I I for one have always been pleased to have both british chairman and british manager. a British spine to the team on the pitch and a British backbone to the staff. I guess I’m just patriotic.like that. I never joined the allardyce out brigade because I’ve always thought the bloke was on a mission and if left alone to do it, as he did with Bolton, he could lead us into Europe. That might never happen but I think we’re going in the right direction. at the end of the day I think we all know that a manager is only as good as his players and now, it’s obvious, we have better players. Sam is always keen to stress that we are all in it together the players the fans the staff. And he’s right. The thing that does annoy me slightly is that when the Sam out brigade were trying to get him sacked in the summer, the poor football on the pitch last year (minus the tottenham games and one or two others). Was all down to one man. The blame was for allardyce alone. This season after a few good performances and by and large entertaining games of football the allardyce witch hunt seems to have Stopped but the credit doesn’t go to allardyce alone as did the blame when things were going wrong. No now the credit goes to the chairman and every Tom dick and harry in the playing staff. Any credit given to allardyce seems to be given begrudgingly but hey ho I guess we can’t expect leopards to change their spots over night can we.