As it stands, Sam Allardyce is the West Ham manager. For this season’s final six matches, he will take his place on the sideline, surveying the efforts of his lot. He will almost certainly shout until he’s red (or at least redder) in the face, he might point a little, here or there, and he may well look up at the Boleyn Ground and ponder quietly to himself.
But when he has pondered enough, and those six matches have been played, we will see the concluding bow on the Premier League veteran manager’s tenure with the Hammers. So, where to then for Big Sam? Apparently, the answer is – anywhere but here.
At least, that is all one can expect Allardyce to glean from the behaviour of his employers. The 60-year-old’s contract is up at the end of the season and he is yet to be offered a new one. Contracts are rarely allowed to wind down this close to the deadline if there is any real intention to renew. Obviously, there is credence to the argument to let Allardyce go.
West Ham have won only one of their last 10 league matches. This year has seen a steady slide down the table, a journey punctuated by some truly terrible results, like the 3-1 thumping at the hands of Crystal Palace, and the lethargic loss to bottom-placed Leicester City. More than this, even in West Ham’s more fruitful patches this season, Allardyce has shown himself incapable of mending his own bad managerial habits; the team have squandered points hand over fist by sitting back after taking the lead. In their last match against Stoke, again the Hammers conceded late, at the very death in fact. Only four teams – QPR, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Villa – have conceded more goals in the final ten minutes of matches than Allardyce’s team.
The suspicion is that West Ham have been ordered to try and protect any lead, no matter how slender, rather than look to score again and kill off the contest. This is a strategy that (along with being especially frustrating for the supporters when it backfires) is a highly conservative approach, and being accused of tactical conservatism is something Allardyce is acutely familiar with, having spent much of his career trying to throw off the ‘hoofball’ label.
There is the troubling persistence with Kevin Nolan, a man of no tangible footballing worth, except his exquisite ability to harangue the referee. And then there is Andy Carroll, the occasionally effective, and even more-so occasionally fit striker on whom Allardyce appears to have a heady man-crush. Just poll a random cross-section of the Upton Park terraces and you will have a list as long as a James Collins hoof that will tell you why Sam Allardyce should leave and never come back.
And yet, there is weight to an argument to the contrary. West Ham can still achieve their best ever points total in the Premier League, and even though their form has tailed off badly since the new year, they were flying early in the season. The recruitment this term has been outstanding, with Diafra Sakho, Cheikhou Kouyate, Enner Valencia, Aaron Cresswell, Alex Song and Carl Jenkinson all enjoying varying degrees of success. The most compelling section of the argument came a few weeks ago, however, when West Ham sauntered past the point of mathematical certainty against relegation. It was a token milestone this season, to be sure, but it chimes tellingly as a stirring dawn breaks for the East London club – with the move to the Olympic Stadium due to come in 2016/17, one more season of top-flight safety is in order, and Allardyce has proved himself nothing if not a steady hand in this regard. This alone argues strongly in favour of his contract being renewed, for at least one more go around.
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But now, with the club’s dithering betraying its wandering eyes, how could one be sure that Allardyce – for all intents and purposes, a dead man walking – would even do the job next season? If the man is effectively counting down the matchdays until the sack, what point would there be coming into work with anything close to resembling a sense of enthusiasm? No, thanks to the very conspicuous courting of alternative managerial candidates, and contractual inaction, this ship has sailed. West Ham recently appointed Tony Henry, the former Everton scout, to head their summer recruitment policy. A thinly veiled come-hither in the direction of David Moyes, currently sunning himself in San Sebastián, it appears. Moyes would certainly be a fine choice, with a proven record in the Premier League. That mid-to-top level pocket looks mighty snug to David Gold, David Sullivan and Karen Brady right now, and the new stadium certainly makes West Ham appear a more attractive destination than it did when the club was playing in the Championship. But more attractive than sunny Spain? We will see, in time.
Rafa Benitez, who recently confirmed that he will be leaving Napoli at the end of the season, is another manager on West Ham’s shortlist, and he is a particularly intriguing candidate. The former Liverpool and Chelsea boss would bring the tactical nous and progressive attitude that the fans crave, and he too would be comfortable in that top six bracket that West Ham sees itself as destined for. Whether he would find the West Ham job, undoubtedly a tricky project, sufficiently appealing is the question here. Slaven Bilic, Garry Monk, Roberto di Matteo, the list stretches onward over the horizon. But will the club hierarchy secure a replacement in time? Or will – acting out the absolute worst case scenario – they fail to successfully court anyone to replace Allardyce and be forced to offer him a belated, red-faced contract at the last moment? Would Allardyce, should it come to this, even accept? Sunderland are sniffing around, and they are too sucking in the welcome scent of Premier League safety that Allardyce has made his own.
No one wants a tremulous future, in any aspect of their life, but especially not professionally. West Ham had better hope David Moyes picks Carlton Cole over Carlos Vela.
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