The rumours that West Ham manager Sam Allardyce is expected to sign a new three-year deal worth £9m in total, which is a considerable pay increase on his current two-year deal at £2m per-year, are refusing to go away, but with safety achieved, will the club be tempted to look for a bigger name capable of bringing more attractive football to the Upton Park faithful, or would the simply be mad to even contemplate looking elsewhere?
After being handed the two-year deal at the start of last season, Allardyce’s mandate was simple; win promotion back to the top flight at the first attempt and then ensure the club maintain their Premier League status above all else. On both fronts, albeit courtesy of a messy promotion campaign and play-off final with what was by far the league’s most expensive squad and heftiest wage bill, the 58-year-old has achieved all that has been asked of him, but is that enough?
The club’s co-owner David Sullivan told the Daily Mirror this week: “At the end of the season, we will sit down with Sam. If he wants to stay and is reasonable with his demands, he will stay.” Of course, if the reports are to be believed, despite having to fund £15m every year of their stay at the Olympic Stadium by handing it straight back to the government, it looks as if even though funds are tight, they are extremely keen to keep Allardyce at the club.
And why wouldn’t they be? With nine games of the campaign left to play, they sit six points above the relegation zone in 14th position, and every West Ham fan would have taken that at the start of the season. Stability is the watchword in the top flight these days and Allardyce offers that, while the curse that befalls clubs he has managed shortly after his departure, with Bolton, Newcastle and Blackburn all getting relegated inside two years after his exit, should surely stand as a cautionary tale for a club that’s been through the ringer in recent times in terms of yo-yo’ing between the Premier League and the Championship.
Allardcye clearly feels settled in east London, telling Sky Sports on Wednesday about the prospect of a new deal: “We both want to do it, it’s just a question of sorting out the dotting of the i’s and crossing of the t’s. As always, that is not as easy a situation as you would like. You always have to do some negotiations when you are moving into the next contract, just as there were plenty of negotiations over the first contract. So we will hopefully come to a conclusion very shortly.”
It all depends on what sort of club West Ham want to be and how ambitious this move to a new stadium has made them. Allardyce is the very essence of a compromise candidate in that no fan particularly loves how their team plays with him in charge, and it can be downright dour fare at times, bordering on depressingly unadventurous, but he’s excellent at keeping a side stable in the top flight, of bringing in the occasional flair player and delivering consistent results. In terms of a substance test, there are few out there with better record over the past decade, but that nagging doubt about a lack of style refuses to go away.
West Ham fans have cultivated this myth that they are one of the final bastions of passing football, but having been to Upton Park on a number of occasions this season, there have been plenty of times when the style hasn’t been considered direct enough from the vocal voices on the terraces. A nervy atmosphere which means any man in the dug-out is only ever a poor run of results away from being under serious pressure and both Alan Curbishley and Alan Pardew have spoken of the poisonous atmosphere inside Upton Park at times, a culture that’s been allowed to fester due to the club’s inability to implement the pass and move philosophy it so apparently craves.
In that sense, you have to respect Allardyce for going so against the grain in implementing his own style, a long ball game he knows is effective. At times it lacks such little ambition it’s absurd, but across a 38-game league campaign, it will always get you just enough points. Is ‘just enough’ what the club wants, though? It’s certainly what it needs and any move for a glitzier name would be a huge gamble. Allardyce is tolerated not because of what he represents, but because he delivers what is asked of him and no more in what is a pure marriage of convenience.
Long ball football can only take you so far and it’s no coincidence that both Stoke and West Ham have scored the least amount of goals away from home this season in the entire league, a pitiful return of just nine apiece in 15 games. Allardyce has overseen a side that has lost 10 games on the road this term and were it not for their home form, they would be in serious trouble.
The grass is not always greener, as clubs that have dispensed with Allardyce’s service have shown in recent seasons, while he does seem to get more out of a side the longer he works with them, which again counts in his favour for being awarded a new deal, but yet again we return to that style vs substance debate .
If being a mid-table club with a decent cup run is enough for West Ham fans at the moment, then they simply can’t do any better, but should the stadium move set pulses racing a little more, some of those frustrated by the sheer lack of ambition at times on display and the outstanding commitment shown at trying not to pass the ball, few would begrudge them their due at looking at alternative candidates. With a new deal seemingly close, a big summer of transfer activity awaits the club and most importantly, the man in charge, for not only what it will say plenty about him, but also what he hopes to achieve across those three years.
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