Sam Allardyce Is The Manager That England Truly Deserves

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

It is a cold, crisp morning at St. George's Park, and the training pitches glimmer like silver under a thin veil of morning dew. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and nature is at one with itself. Suddenly, there is a moment of perfect silence, a second of peacefulness punctured only by the Staffordshire breeze. That moment is then shattered to pieces by the angry bellowings of an incandescent Big Sam.

"WIN THEM SECOND BALLS WAYNE, YOU SOFT BASTARD," he cries, his Dudley brogue booming like thunder. "PUT A FOOT IN, STERLING, YOU FOOKIN' PRAT," he screams. "VARDY, HAND ME THAT NICOTINE PATCH, LAD," he howls, before chomping down an entire packet of Nicorette gum. These are Big Sam's commands, and they shake the ground, scatter the clouds, and send woodland animals scampering in terror for miles around. These are the decrees of the new England manager, and he's not going to put up with short passing, or tiki-taka, or any of that bloody southern nonsense anymore.

Allardyce isn't England manager yet, of course, but he seems to be the FA's chosen candidate as things stand. Numerous outlets have reported that he's currently in talks over the top job, and some have suggested that he could be appointed sooner rather than later. There have been many fans, pundits and columnists who have expressed their dismay at the thought of Big Sam managing the national team, with some claiming that it's a backwards step. Considering that he was consciously overlooked back when Sven-Göran Eriksson left the post – apparently on account of his rudimentary tactics – those who see him as a regressive appointment are almost certainly right.

Indeed, that's exactly why he should be given the England job. More than anyone else on the planet, Sam Allardyce is the manager that England truly deserve.

Big Sam Allardyce is the favourite to be the next England gaffer. He's EXACTLY what this country needs as a leader. https://t.co/mNNAppJEcz
— Marathonbet (@marathonbet) July 11, 2016

When it comes to English football in the modern era, unimaginativeness reigns supreme. First and foremost, we are painfully pedestrian when it comes to diagnosing the problems with our national team. The FA seem to flip-flop between thinking that we need to reduce the lower-leagues to a playground for top-flight academy sides, and that we need to have a cap on them talented foreigners, coming over here and blocking the progress of our homegrown boys. The reality is that grassroots football is still hugely underdeveloped in this country, and until we see the Premier League's billions trickle down the league pyramid we are never going to fulfil our potential in the way that other, more prudent footballing nations have.

While we could go on when it comes to grassroots development, that's hardly the only way in which we've failed to use our imaginations. The Roy Hodgson era was a prolonged glorification of averageness, a paean to being bland, conventional and quietly mundane. If we can just about understand why Hodgson was appointed in the first place – a safe pair of hands after the disastrous reign of Fabio Capello, another unimaginative appointment albeit in a completely different way – the fact that he survived England's dire showing at the World Cup is testament to our timidness. The FA are out of ideas when it comes to progressive appointments, and have been for years.

That's where Big Sam comes in.

Whatever you think of Big Sam's tactics, he is the best of the unimaginative candidates. Jose Mourinho once claimed that his West Ham team played "football from the 19th-century", and in an age of unprecedented English conservatism, what could be more fitting than that? If football managers were historical caricatures, Big Sam would be a brutal staff-sergeant from a particularly grim episode of Sharp. He'll whip our lads into shape, beat some discipline into them, teach them to kill Frenchies with their bare hands and earn their grudging respect in the process. That's what we want from our football managers. Forget entertainment, and aesthetics, and all that shite.

Ultimately, if we spend the next two years watching Gary Cahill hoof long balls up to Harry Kane it will be entirely fitting. We are tired of creativity, we are tired of experts, and we'll probably settle on letting Sam Allardyce lead England to glorious, patriotic failure at Russia 2018. Big Sam's candidacy epitomises not only the contemporary state of football in this country, but also the state of the country itself. Bollocks to progress, bollocks to long-term thinking and bollocks to trying to make things better. All we want is to ruffle some tail feathers, and Big Sam's the right man for the job.

@W_F_Magee