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11th March 2019
07:40pm GMT
"I'm not a fan of where the Premier League is going at all. I'm losing the excitement that used to be there week in and week out."
Football reached its aesthetic peak when I was regularly deploying a Bolton Wanderers side spearheaded by Kevin Davies and Kevin Davies' adamantium forehead.
"I'm finding that the amount of play that is going on in midfield is slowing the game down far, far too much for me."
Modern players are literally taking the time to look up and pass the ball to their own teammates rather than lump it as far away from their own goal as possible. Sickening.
"We're losing that cut and thrust quality that we had as the Premier League."
A statement that is founded on absolutely no empirical evidence whatsoever but sounds believable enough if your viewing experience consists of Danny Murphy's analysis on Match of the Day 2. Should be fine - even though 'cut and thrust' means exactly nothing.
At this point - and fair play to him - Andy Gray stepped in and reminded Big Sam of literally the most recent Premier League match they had watched over the weekend (Arsenal versus United), which had end-to-end action and excitement throughout.
But like a clumsy Argentinosaurus stumbling across the Laramidian plains as the asteroids crashed down around it (those bloody foreigners comin' over here and naming their dinosaurs over the land masses upon which their fossils were discovered), Allardyce continued blundering on with his doomed argument, turning against the real enemy of football - the non-British managing elite.
"All the other games this weekend games have been just a little bit too slow in the build-up and a little bit low in terms of shots on target and chances created."
I literally have no idea what I'm talking about. There was one draw the entire weekend and only three teams out of twenty failed to score a goal. God I really shouldn't have had that stein of rosé before coming on.
Bonus Fact: During his six months at Everton, Big Sam's Toffees finished 20th out of 20th for total shots in the Premier League.
Enter Keys, with the question absolutely nobody was thinking to ask: "Is it the case that that 'cut and thrust' that you talk about is what attracted all these foreign coaches and yet they've turned our game into the one we used to watch in Italy?"
"Errrrr, er, yes. Some of it. Has to be some of it."
Jose Mourinho, notoriously defensive anti-coach who won the treble with a rugged, disciplined Inter Milan side in 2009/10 once called my brand of football 'from the 19th century'. Really hope nobody remembers.
"We are sucked into the fact that they all do better than we do."
When I say 'we' and 'they' what I really mean is us (British managers) and them (everyone else). Those bastards. Here is the league table as it stands by nationality of manager until we get to the first Englishman:
1. Spanish
2. German
3. Argentinian
4. Spanish
5. Norwegian
6. Italian
7. Portuguese
8. Spanish
9. Chilean
10. Northern Irish
11. Portuguese
12. ENGLISH
We can't get a fucking look in! It's impossible!
"And they all bring their kids up better than we do,"
Literally nobody has ever actually said that but it's implied, isn't it? When a club like Southampton goes and calls Ralph Hotdoghuttl instead of me, or Pards, or even Curbs, that's what they're saying. They are implicitly saying 'Sam, look, we can't give you a job over this far more talented foreign manager with more recent successes than you because we think you English don't know how to raise your kids'. Disgusting. And I'm the xenophobe! PC gone mad it is.
"And they all play football better than we do."
Universally true. Even I, Big Sam's internal monologue, have to accept that this is universally true.
"Everybody goes on about it, so we must all have to change to what they do."
And to end, a final message to Big Sam: you don't have to mate, but it might help you get a job instead of appearing on television and blaming 'dem bloody foreigners' over and over again instead of acknowledging your own shortcomings as a manager. Just a thought. You'd be nothing without Jay-Jay Okocha.
Anyway, here's the salty gammon joint of an interview in full; best washed down with a frothy, frothy Carling:
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