Opinions on Big Sam’s future have been somewhat divided of late. The hashtag #AllardyceOut has featured prominently from around Christmas time on social media.
I was firmly in favour of keeping Sam as manager. He masterminded our return to the premier league at the first time of asking, achieved a 10th place finish in our first season back in the top flight and secured two fantastic away wins at arguably our biggest rivals, Spurs.
But that was until I sat through the game against Crystal Palace on Saturday.
After what had been an emotional couple of days for everyone involved with the club, with the untimely passing of young Dylan Tombides, I thought the best way to send him on his way was to secure all three points against an average Crystal Palace side.
But he couldn’t even do that. With Dylan’s parents and younger brother Taylor in the stands, a woeful display ensured Palace left E13 with all three points. No disrespect to Palace but, if you can’t beat Palace at home on such a poignant day, then something is clearly wrong.
That was the clincher for me. The final nail in Big Sam’s coffin. Thanks for what you’ve done but, enough is enough. It’s time for a new manager to take the helm and lead this wonderful club of ours into a new phase. But who is the man for the job?
According to oddschecker.com, Malky Mackay is 7/4 favourite to take the top job, closely followed by Harry Redknapp at 7/2. Michael Laudrup is next at 5/1. Slaven Bilic follows at 10/1 and then we have Billy Davies, Glenn Hoddle and Stuart Pearce all at 12/1.
Paolo Di Canio, Alex Mcleish and Steve Clarke are all at 16/1 while, Interestingly, Frank Rijkaard is 20/1 and Laurent Blanc is 33/1.
Some names seem more realistic than others but, personally, I would’nt like to see Harry Redknapp back at West ham. Too much water has gone under that bridge already and going backwards is hardly going to help us go forwards.
No one is a bigger admirer of Paolo than me and I would of loved to of seen him in the dugout at West ham. That was until he went slightly mad at Sunderland. No doubting his passion and commitment but, if he failed dismally then he would no longer remain a West ham legend, and I think he deserves to be a legend to at the club.
So realistically, that leaves four names to be our next manager. Malky Mackay, Michael Laudrup, Slaven Bilic and Frank Rijkaard. If any of those four were the next man to sit in the fat man’s chair, I wouldn’t be too upset.
My head says Laudrup, but my heart wants Rijkaard. Either way, it’s a massive improvement on what we already have.
But that’s stating the obvious.
