Sam’s style

Ok Sam Allardyce has been in charge for over a year now; so surely we’ve all seen enough of his style to give an honest appraisal.

I’ll be honest; when Big Sam was at Bolton Wanderers I was one of the many who mindlessly accepted that what other managers and the media said about Sam was accurate; that he was a footballing Neanderthal, whose entire success at Bolton was built on nothing but the long-ball game.

I now know that perceived notion is nothing but utter tosh. Anyone who watches West Ham with an open mind will realise that we play a mix of footy; at times it’s intricate in the build up, other times we sweep it out to the wings and of course we hit Andy Carroll/Carlton Cole on the diagonal.

Now of course we would all love to play like Barcelona but we don’t possess the likes of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi within our ranks! So we have to develop a style that suits us; it just so happens we don’t have one particular style; and so far it’s proved very effective as we sit comfortably in the top 10 of the league after 7 games.

So would we rather play a mix and stay up comfortably; maybe even secure a top 10 finish or would we rather attempt to play like Barcelona every week and possibly wind up in an all too familiar relegation scrap?

I’d also add that we’re playing better football this season under Sam simply because we now possess better footballers than we did in the Championship; it’s a hell of a lot easier to play a more aesthetically pleasing game when you’ve got Mohamed Diame in the engine room than as opposed to Papa Bouba Diop.

Given time and money to bring in better quality players I do believe Sam will progress the style even further; like David Moyes for instance, Everton didn’t exactly play the most attractive footy when he first went there, but over time Moyes has brought in more and more quality to the point that they are great side to watch.

Anyone who simply dismisses Allardyce as ‘long ball’ needs to shake of their preconceptions and actually watch this current West Ham team play.