Sam Allardyce’s appointment as the England’s manager is expected to be delayed until Friday to allow Sunderland and the Football Association time to finish haggling over compensation. Roy Hodgson’s successor is then likely to be presented to the media at some point next week.
With David Moyes set to be swiftly installed as Allardyce’s successor on Wearside, negotiations are not regarded as a major problem but reflect the anger and frustration of the Sunderland owner, Ellis Short, at the manner in which the FA poached his manager.
Considering Allardyce had only a year outstanding on a club contract worth around £2m a year the deal appears straightforward. It has, though, been slowed slightly by Sunderland’s desire to gain a little more than £2m by way of recompense for the disruption caused to their transfer plans and pre-season preparations. Short was particularly irritated by the near two-week hiatus that followed his manager’s interview for the England job and plunged the club into limbo.
It had appeared Allardyce’s final act as the Sunderland manager would be his departure after half-time from Wednesday’s 3-0 friendly win at Hartlepool but the 61-year-old was back at the training ground putting Jermain Defoe and co through their paces on Thursday morning. Although barred from speaking to reporters until matters are concluded he slowed his car sufficiently to offer waiting television crews a thumbs-up on the way in.
A meeting of the FA board at Wembley on Thursday morning rubberstamped a decision made by Martin Glenn, the FA’s chief executive, Dan Ashworth, the technical director, and David Gill, the vice-chairman, before moving on to other business expected to occupy them for the remainder of the day.
Allardyce, who has agreed a two-year contract worth £3.5m a year with an option to extend the deal for a further two years, informed his players he was the England manager during half-time at Hartlepool. The news of the appointment they had long anticipated emerged as they travelled to Victoria Park on the team bus.
The jubilation of the escape from relegation has subsided and Allardyce had become frustrated in recent weeks, particularly after Short told him Sunderland’s transfer budget would be around 50% less than the manager had hope for.
Now Moyes, the former Everton, Manchester United and Real Sociedad manager whom Short has twice courted in the past, will have to try to persuade the owner to speculate to accumulate. Under the guidance of a new chief executive in Martin Bain, Sunderland have still to make a signing, although a deal for Aston Villa’s Micah Richards is believed to have been agreed in principle.
Allardyce will mentor a young assistant with a view to him eventually taking the England job and may well introduce more than one young coach to the national set-up.
Although Gary Neville, Hodgson’s former No2, will not be returning to the England fold the FA is keen to involve promising coaches and former internationals – Rio Ferdinand, Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard have been mentioned – in the backroom retinue. It is possible Kevin Nolan, the former Bolton and West Ham midfielder and, briefly, the Leyton Orient manager, could have some involvement with his former manager. An approach to the former Derby manager Paul Clement – now working alongside Carlo Ancelotti at Bayern Munich – could also be on the agenda.
Glenn, Ashworth and Gill are believed to have been particularly impressed by Allardyce’s passion for enhancing opportunities for English coaches as well as by his innovative use of psychology, his determination to offer England a discernible identity and his outstanding organisational skills.
Eddie Howe, who was spoken to by the FA along with Jürgen Klinsmann, Steve Bruce and possibly one other, almost certainly foreign, candidate, has been mooted as an ideal assistant to Allardyce in a part-time capacity.
Although the 38-year-old Howe, who felt the vacancy had arisen too early for him, is regarded as a prospective England manager, there would be logistical problems and conflicts of interest were he to combine running Bournemouth with helping Allardyce. Perhaps mindful of the tensions that arose at Newcastle when, more than a decade ago, Steve McClaren mixed managing Middlesbrough with assisting Sven-Goran Eriksson, Bournemouth are believed to be far from keen on the idea.
