Redemption is never far away in football and Sam Allardyce’s banishment ended when he replaced Alan Pardew as Crystal Palace manager in December.
He’s had a baptism of fire. After the positive of a point at Vicarage Road in his first game, Palace were pathetic at the Emirates with only Wayne Hennessey standing between Arsenal and a massacre. Things went from bad to worse with defeat in his first home game against Swansea City.
Allardyce was sacked as England boss in August. His one game in charge was hardly inspiring and certainly offered no evidence that he could manage at Real Madrid,
<blockquote> “I’m not suited to Bolton or Blackburn, I would be more suited to Internazionale or Real Madrid.
“It wouldn’t be a problem to me to go and manage those clubs because I would win the Double or the league every time.” </blockquote>
He went on to claim he would do the same were he in charge at “Chelsea or Manchester United”. Football in the intervening six years was unconvinced.
Even his appointment by the Football Association was met with disbelief by some England supporters. Many thought appointing an English coach was the way forward but the abject performance in Slovakia, despite a 1 – 0 win over opponents who held England at Euro 2016, underlined that he was simply a younger version of Roy Hodgson.
His sacking by the FA after a Daily Telegraph sting was no surprise. To the outsider, they seemed relieved to be able to rectify their mistake. The football wilderness beckoned for a man reportedly broken by the experience. Even by England standards, it was an unseemly and abrupt end to his career.
But resilience is a key trait of football managers. It’s a job where the clock is counting down to the sack from the moment a manager is appointed.
Alan Pardew had been waiting on the football equivalent of death row for some time. Palace reached the FA Cup final in 2016 and that earned him a reprieve, despite the 2 – 1 defeat to Manchester United.
It took the Eagles three games to register their first win of the season and it was quickly followed by two more. Three wins in a row? That was more than they had managed in total since Christmas 2015.
Palace took 31 points in their opening 19 games in 2015/16 and just 11 in the remaining 19, slumping from 5th in the table on Boxing Day to 15th when they lost 4 – 1 at Southampton on the final day of the season.
2016/17 wasn’t looking any better. Despite winning three on the bounce, they lost 10 of Pardew’s 17 Premier League matches in charge. The change had to come and ‘Big’ Sam Allardyce was the messiah.
Whether he will be remains to be seen. While he may not have expected anything from Arsenal beyond a hardworking performance, defeat in the following match against Swansea could prove to be a pivotal moment in the season.
The Swans had themselves recently changed manager; Paul Clement arrived and the new boss saw his side win 2 – 1 at Selhurst Park. Crucially, it took the Welsh club to within a point of Palace.
The pressure is growing on Allardyce and without a quick turnaround in form, supporter discontent will return quickly to south London.
Palace’s problem is the fixture list.
West Ham next weekend may offer a chance to take on a side more dispirited than the Eagles. Humiliated in the FA Cup, Allardyce will be hoping that their players don’t respond to Slaven Bilic’s post-match rollicking after the Hammers craven 5 – 1 capitulation to Manchester City.
From 4th March, Palace plays the entire top six and seven of the top eight, with five of those matches away from home. Ordinarily, the intervening home games would offer the path to salvation but their form is so wretched, it seems unlikely.
They desperately need reinforcements in defence but also for the forwards to score more frequently. That seems strange considering the 30 goals netted so far is the seventh highest total in the Premier League.
However, since scoring ten in the three games against Southampton, Hull City and Swansea City, they have scored just three in five games. Take those ten goals off their total and Crystal Palace have the fifth worst tally in the division.
It’s relegation form in front of goal and results are suffering as a consequence.
Improving that record may be a tricky task in the short-term. Wilf Zaha, their main provider of goals with six assists this season, is away at the African Cup of Nations with Ivory Coast. Switching international allegiance late last year is something of a bind for Palace.
The Elephants are expected to reach the latter stages of the competition which if they do, means Zaha won’t return until after the home game against Sunderland on 4th February.
Palace can ill-afford his absence.
Their biggest problem is the defence. Palace have one clean sheet this season in the Premier League so far. Three in total with Blackpool and Bolton failing to breach the Eagles backline in the domestic cups. It’s not good enough and to attract the quality of players that they need, that record has to improve.
Allardyce’s record is patchy. His best win percentage as a manager came at Blackpool, his first permanent role: 43.1%. Since then, it’s peak was 41.2% at Bolton before falling through the thirties to 29% at Sunderland. His brief there was to keep them up and he achieved that.
His record is impressive at instilling mid-table security at clubs. West Ham, Blackburn and Bolton all benefited; Newcastle might have but Allardyce was hugely unpopular with supporters and the owners who appointed him just the summer before.
Palace would settle for mid-table right now and Allardyce needs that to happen. The Dudley-born manager needs to resurrect his career and can only do so by enhancing his footballing reputation. Keeping Crystal Palace up at the expense of his former club Sunderland may just do that.
It’s by no means a foregone conclusion and this could well be the only the second relegation of his managerial career.
