Big Sam has his fight back

Wednesday night’s rearguard action at Stamford Bridge was a brilliant display in courage, guts and team spirit to prevent the millionaires from West London finding a goal.

Everyone throughout the side from keeper Adrian to Andy Carroll/Carlton Cole up front, worked as hard as was physically possible for the cause, harrying, tackling, and of course blocking anything that threatened the West Ham goal. But it wasn’t just the spirit of the side that was so impressive; it was also the performance of Manager Sam Allardyce on the night.

Now it’s fair to say that big Sam has taken a huge amount of flack from West Ham fans in recent months as the side’s form plummeted, but on Wednesday night there was a return to the passion that had been missing for so long from the beleaguered boss.

For much of this season, it had looked as though all the fight had gone from Allardyce. His demeanour and body language both during matches and afterwards in his media duties were incredibly low and depressing, something that hasn’t really been seen before in his reign at Upton Park.

Too often, he was pictured slumped in his chair at matches in which West Ham were losing, with a resigned look on his face. This defeatism was at its height in the recent 6-0 drubbing at Manchester City in the Capital One Cup semi-final. Throughout the game he was either slumped, arms folded in his comfortable chair, or huddled up in his coat in the pouring rain on the sideline, motionless and showing no enthusiasm whatsoever.

Later, in his post match press conference he basically explained away the defeat as an inevitability, and pretty much implied that the players were simply incapable any better.

It seemed at that point that this was a man who had effectively raised the white flag in surrender, and was merely waiting for his inevitable capture (or in this case sacking). You could be forgiven for believing Avram Grant had returned to the dugout.

Thankfully, since that dark moment, things have changed, and the old Allardyce appears to have returned, snarling on the touchline, trying to kick every ball for his team and make every decision for the referee. No more so was this evident than in Wednesday’s fixture at Chelsea.

Allardyce spent a large portion of the game up on the touchline next to Jose Mourinho, barking out instructions to his team and (apparently) winding up ‘the special one’ which was an added bonus.

Then in the post-match press conference, after being told of Mourinho’s ludicrous, childish and hugely hypocritical complaints about his sides style of play, Big Sam laughed and poked fun at his Portuguese counterpart with some brilliant responses.

There is no doubt that many of the Hammers spineless displays in the last couple of months have coincided with the less than positive body language of Allardyce, and his negativity could hardly have been inspiring to the players.

But against Cardiff and Chelsea the team responded to his passion and energy on the touchline, and this new found fight needs to continue for the remainder of this season.