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SAM'S THE MAN
Premier League teams need to copy Sam Allardyce’s blueprint for success instead of following Pep Guardiola’s lead
One club paid the price for playing it out over the weekend
THE greatest trick Pep Guardiola ever pulled was convincing the world you had to play out from the back.
Anything else, and you are a Keyser Soze, murdering the beautiful game with the usual suspects queuing up to criticise.
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The thing is, Manchester City are brilliant at it and Guardiola has the players to do it.
City are not only the best at doing it but also at pressing and winning the ball back when the opposition tries to replicate it.
Witness Saturday when Ipswich keeper Arijanet Muric tried to turn into Franz Beckenbauer and had the ball wrestled off him by Savinho for Kevin De Bruyne to score.
Southampton lost at Newcastle on the opening day when stopper Alex McCarthy passed straight to Alexander Isak as the Saints tried to build a move from the back.
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All promoted clubs seem to be intent on sticking to their principles.
Daniel Farke took Norwich up and went to Liverpool on the opening day of the 2019-20 season and earned huge praise for their short passing game — they lost 4-1.
It seems to be you are not tactically astute enough as a player or manager if you try anything a bit more direct.
But what is ‘playing football the right way’. Sir Alex Ferguson always praised teams for coming to Old Trafford and playing ‘the right way’ having just stuffed them by four or five goals.
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Over a coffee with former Nottingham Forest boss Frank Clark one Monday I bemoaned the spectacle of a match the night before exclaiming that football is an entertainment industry.
“It’s not,” he said. “It’s something people go to watch to see their team win.”
Meet the new Wags of the Premier League season, from a Belgian interior designer to a Portuguese model
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And he’s right, if your team win do you really worry about how it is done.
Back in Nottingham I got to know Sam Allardyce the then-Notts County manager and went on to witness the incredible years he had at Bolton — and they were incredible.
No manager has taken an unfancied club into the Premier League and established them in the way Allardyce did with Wanderers.
First of all, he got them up, then he kept them up, and then he plotted a course that saw his side finish eighth, sixth, eighth, and seventh between 2003 and 2007.
They have never been close to that incredible time since. He created an atmosphere off the pitch with everyone pulling for each other and enjoying the whole experience.
He played using the strength and pace of his team.
He got Kevin Davies to build himself up over one summer to become the perfect targetman.
But it was never hit-and-hope as his detractors would say. Davies, in particular, was brilliant at winning the ball and bringing others into play high up the field.
Most importantly, defending would be no-nonsense.
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There was quality in his teams too and he made sure that big-name players who came were not just playing out their careers.
Players like Jay-Jay Okocha, Gary Speed, Ivan Campo and Youri Djorkaeff were a joy to watch still.
And yet he was derided, not least by the likes of Arsene Wenger and Rafa Benitez, when he beat them. Wenger used to hate playing Bolton.
Allardyce’s attention to detail and knowledge of players and the game were incredible. During his brief time in America, he soaked up sports science and was one of the first to use it to its full extent in the Premier League.
That attention was never more apparent than on a late night after the pub and a game of Kerplunk between about seven of us back at my house.
He won and revealed afterwards his tactic of a way to hold the straws lightly to test the weight of the marbles on them.
From the sidelines Allardyce pulled the strings.
Rather than follow Guardiola, some clubs who come up or struggle to stay up could do worse than look at Allardyce’s blueprint for success.
CITY DID SCINTILLATE WITH SVEN
SAD NEWS at the passing of Sven-Goran Eriksson, one of the nicest guys you will ever meet as I did when he was manager at Manchester City.
It was just for a season, 2007-08, but what a season.
He won both Manchester derbies, had the club top after three games and in the top three throughout October and November — before things slid and City ended up ninth.
The final embarrassing 8-1 defeat at Middlesbrough came when the players knew the boss was on his way out.
But some of the football was scintillating that season, with brilliant players like Elano, and he did not deserve the axe from then chairman Thaksin Shinawatra.
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I'M REALLY LYCRA-ING CYCLISTS
THERE is a large group of cycling nuts who go to my local bar in Burnage.
It’s a non-TV bar but often a laptop will be on showing the latest Tour de Wherever.
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I have no idea what is going on and only recently learned that “Peloton” is not actually a competitor who always finishes in the middle of a race.
But having been walking like John Wayne since my first spin class, I will never criticise the people involved in this sport again.
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