Sam Allardyce was not a popular appointment among West Ham fans used to the finer things in football, but he’s getting the job done and the public are warming to him.

Overview

Ahhh 'Big' Sam Allardyce, like the last dinosaur still stubbornly roving around refusing to die off long after the likes of Peter Reid have been consigned to the history books.

Big Sam is many things to many people. You may know him for the unashamedly direct approaches of the teams he manages, or his occasional Evening Standard column which he uses to tell people who criticise him for that of not being involved in football as deeply as he is and therefore not understanding what they're talking about. You may remember him best for his assertion that he'd have been given one of this country's biggest managerial jobs, possibly even the England job, had he been called Sam Allardicci. Or the BBC documentary that revealed how his football-agent son Craig was able to cream money from Bolton Wanderers transfers while his father was manager there. You may also recall that he said people criticising this conduct didn't understand football on the deep level he did, and that he promised to sue the BBC for the programme but never quite got round to it for some reason.

Which all makes it rather odd that he should turn up at Upton Park to manage West Ham. We all know the Hammers don't we? World Cup winners, Academy of Football, Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst, Paulo Di Canio, bubbles in the air, Joe Cole before he rotted his lungs, Frank Lampard when he really was fat, Florin Răducioiu when he was nearly dead, Hugo Porfirio, Jeroen Boere - it's what people on pubs and the sofas of football discussion programmes call a 'proper football club'. At Peterborough United's ageing London Road stadium last season the thousands of unhappy Hammers gathered on the covered terrace behind the goal told Allardyce in no uncertain terms: "We're West Ham United, we play on the floor."

Yeh Sam, stick your bloody deep understanding mate.

One of the strange things about West Ham is the extremely high ratio of professional football journalists who support them. You don't have to turn too far into the sport section of any national newspaper in this country before you're reading the opinion of a West Ham fan, and last season they regularly besieged Twitter slating both the style of play that the Hammers were employing, and the results there were achieving – particularly in home games – as they grappled with a return to the Championship. Not only were they bad to watch, we were told, but they lacked heart and balls as well.

And yet the cold, hard facts probably explain why Allardyce is so unfailingly smug and full of his own self importance. He once relegated a very talented West Ham team that included the likes of Cole and Jermain Defoe by keeping his Bolton side up at their expense. That Bolton team was the sort of outfit that has Arsene Wenger throwing his toys around but in Jay Jay Okocha and Youri Djorkaeff, Allardyce brought two of the Premier League's most enduring and watchable ball players to these shores.

Similarly at Blackburn, the purists would wring hands and tap away furiously about Allardyce's technique of sending Chris Samba into opposing penalty areas to tread on the goalkeeper's feet while his own keeper Paul Robinson pumped long free kicks towards the ensuing melee. But Blackburn were a comfortable midtable team in the Premier League under his guidance and immediately turned into the football equivalent of the bathroom at an Indian restaurant on the night chef serves a prune curry special to a table of German businessmen once he'd left. It's accepted by almost everybody that Blackburn would have been better served keeping hold of Allardyce than appointing his mentally deranged assistant Steve Kean as boss at the behest of agent Jerome Anderson, and yet Big Sam's negative stigma followed him to West Ham.

The Hammers fans broke off briefly from that chant at Peterborough to celebrate a couple of goals in a 2-0 win. That was one of a club record 13 successes on the road last term and while they did indeed endure a lousy run at home that saw them go five without a win at one stage, it followed four consecutive wins and was proceeded by three more as they found enough heart and balls to beat first Cardiff over two legs and then Ian Holloway's enterprising Blackpool team over one in the play offs. Allardyce had been appointed to lead West Ham straight back into the Premier League at the first time of asking, and for all the moaning and groaning he did just that.

Noticeably this summer, for all the journalists that complained so bitterly about him last season, the number of season previews tipping West Ham to be relegated could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Whether you think Allardyce is awesome, awful or anything in between, there's a universal acceptance that he'll get the job done.

He's pragmatic, and that's no bad thing at a club that's almost been as thirsty for farce as QPR in recent times. The boardroom is currently led by porn barons Davids Sullivan and Gold, with Karen Brady running the show day to day. It's a combination that worked well, eventually, at Birmingham and the three of them are certainly not shy of publicity. While they roll around in the muck scrapping for the Olympic Stadium they have a dislikeable but very competent manager keeping an eye on the team – and after a year at the hands of Avram Grant following two with Gianfranco Zola that's certainly no bad thing.

Anyway, in a rare concession to his critics Allardyce said the way West Ham played last season was done with the Championship in mind, hinting that a more easy-on-the-eye style would be employed at a higher level. Then, with a big grin on his face, he went out and signed Andy Carroll.

Judging by their systematic destruction of Fulham – who looked very nice, passing the ball and what not while the pragmatic Hammers unmercifully grabbed the back of their heads and forced their faces into the ground for 90 minutes – can anybody really still complain?

Interview

West Ham fan Ollie Dearn kindly spared LFW some time to give us his opinions on the current state of play at Upton Park. We thank him for his input. Ollie works in PR, so it was nice to be able to nag him back for a change…

What have you made of West Ham’s start to the season? What are the main reasons for optimism and areas of concern at the moment?

Promising enough to lull fans into a false sense of security. Or is that the paranoia taking over again? Let’s be honest, I don’t think anyone would have sniffed at eight from five before the season started. Particularly when you look at how the other promoted teams have fared thus far. The increasingly reddish tinge to Nigel Adkins’ face has been a source of particular mirth in East London.

We’ve built on a great summer. Carroll grabbed the headlines, but we actually brought very well all over the pitch – in seemingly a much more measured fashion than you lot, it has to be said – adding a mix of flair (Yossi, Jarvis), experience (Jaaskelainen, Alou Diarra), and grit (Diame, Collins). In fact, coupled with Nolan (a bastard, but our bastard), we seem to have toughed up that traditional soft underbelly of ours, leading to a mass unclenching of buttocks all around the ground.

On the other hand: the fixture list has been kind to us. October and November look particularly nasty, and we have to be careful not to psyche ourselves out after a few losses in quick succession. The defence has looked shakier than the clean sheets suggest, and our full-backs will struggle against pace. Oh, and our strikers can’t score.

Who are the star men and weak links in the current team?

Andy Carroll was unplayable against Fulham, albeit briefly. He’ll benefit from a team that’s set up around him, and from a manager who rates him highly enough to do so. With service coming in from Matt Jarvis, and his old mate Kev behind him, I think he’ll prove the difference between top half and flirting with the drop. Let’s see how long he sticks around. At this rate, Brendan Rodgers could be gone by January and someone less stubborn could – if rumours are to be believed – recall him.

That said, there’s quality all over the pitch at the moment. Nolan’s Nolan - great to have in your team (and our best captain in years), a pain in the arse to play against. His goals could be crucial, particularly with our lack of firepower up top. Momo Diame, pound-for-pound, has to be one of the signings of the summer. Winston Reid is a different player to last time we were here. Playing next to “Captain” Upson wouldn’t have helped, but he’s now one of the first names on the team sheet and Jarvis has already shown glimpses of what he can do.

But there are concerns, mainly in defence. Our full-backs will struggle against the top teams and James Collins is a proper West Ham player – always keeps you on the edge of your seat, not always for the reasons intended. The lack of a striker who can put the ball in the back of the net is a worry. Without doing any research, I’d wager that we’re the only team in the league yet to have a striker on the score sheet.

It almost seemed that West Ham got promoted in spite of themselves last season – poor home record at times, fans chanting about style of play, it didn’t seem a happy camp at all. Is that fair? How did you see last season?

Oh, West Ham do most things in spite of themselves. I think there was always – well, mostly – a belief that we’d do it. It was a strange season. The home form was a concern – particularly in the Spring, where we had a run that felt like it lasted for a lot longer than seven games it did: D, D, D, D, D, L, D. On the other hand, it was our most profitable away season ever. So all in all, a splendid time to buy my first (home) season ticket in five years.

As for the fans; it wasn’t as bad as the media made out. We seem to have cultivated a reputation for getting on the backs of our own players and that’s snowballed over time. There were certainly times last year when “West Ham left the field to a chorus of boos” – which was news to me, having been there.

“We’re West Ham United, we play on the floor” did catch on for a bit, but only after we started, erm, playing on the floor. It was more of a “we told you so” than an out-and-out critique of style. Allardyce summed it up nicely when he said that the ‘West Ham way’ seemed to him like not winning. He had a point – we haven’t played football that was both stylish and successful since Pardew.

Probably a related point but… what is your opinion of Sam Allardyce? Not a traditional West Ham manager but you can’t argue with the results so far can you? Are fans warming to him generally?

Big fan. I personally thought Sam was a great appointment, just what we needed – someone who’d rock the boat a little bit. Although in the interests of transparency, I also thought Avram Grant was a decent appointment at the time. There was a lot of opposition, but I think most fans have been happy to eat their words. It hasn’t always been pretty, but he’s put a winning mentality back into a club that was on its knees and united a badly fragmented dressing room. He now seems to have taken on somewhat of a cult status around these parts.

He’s pragmatic. We do play nice stuff– although that rarely gets any recognition, clearly – but we aren’t afraid to mix it up either. Take this summer: he’s brought in an entirely new front three, yet barely touched the defence. I think he’s quite looking forward to disproving his old Bolton stereotype.

I didn’t see many (any) pundits tipping West Ham for relegation this year, which is rare for a promoted team. Are you similarly confident of your chances? What would be a successful season?

I’d be surprised. Everyone knows Sam’s smart – he’s been there and done it at our expense before. Most of the squad has experience in this league, and we’ve had some real coups in the transfer market. I’d argue that Carroll, Jarvis, Diame and Nolan could walk into most Premier League teams outside the top four. Success? On paper, staying up, although realistically that would be something of an anti-climax. Avoiding the scrap altogether; top ten would constitute a brilliant year.

Do you want to move to the Olympic Stadium? Is Upton Park really that inadequate? Would it be better to stay and expand where you are?

If we don’t want to get left behind, we have to move. Inadequate would be to do a great old ground a disservice, but there’s little (or no) scope to increase capacity, limited corporate options and nightmarish travel links. So with a heavy heart, yes. It’s a no-brainer for the development of the football club, in the environment we’re in. And having been there, it is a stunning stadium. I think fans who went during the Olympics are increasingly coming round to the idea. With confidentiality agreements in place, it’s hard to gauge what our plans for the stadium actually are; but if rumours are to be believed, we’ve got something a bit special up our sleeves. Let’s wait and see.

What’s your opinion of your board of directors? Regularly in the spotlight, not shy of the media, but are they doing well in their day jobs at West Ham?

I’d say so. It’s taken them a while, and a relegation, but I think they finally have a manager they’re willing to throw their weight (and cash) behind. Zola wasn’t their man, and Grant was a mistake all round – first, his appointment, then the failure to remove him until it was far too late.

They’ve consistently backed Allardyce in the transfer market; putting in their own cash while we continue to be handcuffed by the ridiculous Tevezgate payments. Ticket prices are reasonable, and there’s been a noticeable effort to increase cheaper options, especially for kids. There’s a definite good cop/bad cop thing going on with Gold/Sullivan respectively, but I don’t think there’s much doubt that their hearts are in the right place. That said, there’s always the fear they’re about to do something ridiculous.

But we could be – and have been – a lot worse off. We could have very easily done a Leeds .

As for Brady…she’s clearly good at her job. Her Sun column has caused some consternation in the past but even she’s reined it in recently. The Olympic Stadium’s her baby, and it’s looking like we’ll get that. As always, the devil is in the detail – the real time to judge her will be post-2014, when we’ll either be playing in a lifeless bowl or one of Europe ’s standout stadiums.

Scout Report

Most of the pre-match talk on the West Ham side of things is whether Andy Carroll will be fit to play any part after his hamstring injury picked up against Fulham. He’s back in training, and Sam Allardyce has been warning against selecting him for the England squad in a fortnight, so that suggests he must be close.

In his absence against Sunderland last weekend Allardyce partnered Carlton Cole with Ricardo Vaz Te (the latter looking a little out of his depth in that game by all accounts) and while they pose a different kind of threat to Carroll, the approach is still very much the same. West Ham loo to service their strikers either by getting the ball early into wide areas for crosses into the box, or by going direct down the field to them early, before a defence has chance to get settled, and then getting men around them to look for nod downs.

I’ll take the latter approach first. Against Fulham Carroll was absolutely monstrous at this, taking huge great running jumps at balls chipped up to about 40 yards away from the Fulham goal and not just winning them in the air, but intelligently directing them to other players. Kevin Nolan has always been the chief beneficiary of this approach throughout his career at Bolton, Newcastle and West Ham because his deeper lying midfield position means he arrives onto the scene later than a striker would and is therefore difficult to pick up as he looks to seize on the nod downs.

If it is Carroll leading the West Ham attack QPR must decide how to approach him in this situation. They can either use a deep lying midfield player – Diakite or Mbia perhaps – to block his runs and prevent him executing that prodigious leap he has; they can double team him with a centre back and a defensive midfielder to prevent him winning headers cleanly; or they can simply accept he’s going to win the majority of things in the air and concentrate instead on closing down the spaces around him and making sure his striking partner and the likes of Nolan are marked tightly and unable to do damage when the ball drops from him.

If it isn’t Carroll, then expect West Ham to focus more on getting the ball wide to the likes of Jarvis and Taylor for them to cross balls in for Cole who thrives on those more than long balls. Given QPR’s injury crisis at full back at the moment the best way to do this may be to try and stop the ball going out to the wingers in the first place, rather than trying to combat them after they’ve received it. At Wigan last year Diame was the best player on the pitch against an admittedly under strength QPR team but he, and Nolan, are the key men they have to take out of the game through tight marking, early hassling and not allowing them to settle if West Ham take this approach.

The weaknesses to target, rather encouragingly, are almost all in defence. Allardyce has strangely preferred James Collins to James Tomkins so far this season which I cannot understand for the life of me and when I saw the Hammers at Swansea recently Collins was an absolute liability and accident waiting to happen. New Zealand international Winston Reid has made an excellent start to the season alongside him and if I was Hughes I’d be tempted to occupy him with Bobby Zamora, and then target Collins with either Junior Hoilett or Djibril Cisse. He’s an accident waiting to happen as far as I’m concerned.

As Ollie our West Ham fan says, they’re not exactly crash hot at full back either. With Adel Taarabt and Junior Hoilett at their disposal Rangers are well equipped to target that, and I’ll e very disappointed to see Hughes start with Mackie and Park on the wings again given West Ham’s lack of quality in this area. Personally I’d play Taarabt one side, Hoilett the other, Cisse through the middle with Zamora and keep the play wide, attacking, creative and expansive. Those three against West ham’s full backs and James Collins could well be a recipe for a big win.

Links >>> West Ham Official Website >>> West Ham Blog >>> West Ham Till I Die Blog >>> Scoop It – West Ham news >>> Claret and Blue blog >>> Knees Up Mother Brown message board >>> West Ham Mad site and message board

Tweet @Loftforwords

Pictures – Action Images

Photo: Action Images

TacticalR added 22:08 - Sep 29 Caroll is a big factor. I have seen West Ham a couple of times on TV. They looked very good against Fulham, with Andy Carroll getting everything in the air, and hopeless away at against Swansea. I was a bit surprised by Ollie's positivity about Allardyce. Perhaps Allardyce has restored confidence to the club, but I thought he insulted the fans by scoffing at the 'West Ham Way'. A win would settle a lot of nerves at QPR, but after losing at home to Reading in midweek, we can't take anything for granted.

0

Middlesbrough Polls