Allardyce: England hampered by Champions League - Exclusive Interview
Published 22:59 08/10/11 By Paul Smith
Sam Allardyce has questioned whether England will ever meet with success on the international stage.
England did manage to creep over the finishing line in Montenegro to reach the Euro 2012 Finals.
This was achieved despite the ludicrous dismissal of Wayne Rooney.
And the fact that their attacking talisman will start the tournament suspended will not prick the inflated opinions of what England can achieve in Poland and Ukraine.
Yet England have consistently underachieved in major tournaments since winning the World Cup on home soil in 1966.That’s 44 years without winning a major trophy. Allardyce once came close to landing the England job and refuses to rule himself out of running for the post in the future.
But the West Ham boss is convinced that the dual demands of Premier League and Champions League football is killing England’s chances of success.
And the influx of foreign players is severely restricting the pool of players an England manager can select from.
Allardyce said: “Playing for England is arguably third on the list of priorities for most players and that is always going to have an adverse effect going forward.
“I don’t prescribe to the theory that players don’t care when they pull on an England shirt, but it’s not a priority
“And that will always hamper England’s chances of success going forward.
“If you are going to manage England then you have to live with that and try to overcome it.
“But it’s not easy when there is so much pressure on the biggest players to perform for their respective clubs at home and in Europe and deliver silverware.”
The very high standards set in the Premier League have consistently attracted some of the biggest names in world football, but Big Sam feels that recruitment drive is having a detrimental effect on the national side.
He explained: “If you go back 10 years there were probably around 225 English players playing top-flight football which gave the national manager a massive pool to select from.
“Now it’s ridiculously low, somewhere around the 75 mark.
“And there is cause to delude ourselves that perhaps some of the players are better than they really are when they are playing in teams dominated by world-class players. The same applies to the Champions League which is the main priority for the top English sides.
“You see all the world’s best players, but you can’t buy a player to play in the national team, you have to work with what you have.”
And coupled with that is the enormous pressure to deliver for England.
Sam went on: “You can argue, given the lack of success, that expectations going into major tournaments are completely unrealistic and that takes its toll on players. There is no room for error, no honeymoon period when you’re a player or manager for England.
“Look at England in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
“Almost a faultless qualifying campaign and then, given the ridiculous expectations, the team performed very poorly.
“We’ve had this obsession with foreign coaches and I think the myth they are better than us is being put to bed.
“The English national team should be managed by an Englishman.
“When I came close to landing the job the brief was for an Englishman.
“And although the FA eventually gave the job to Steve McClaren, it was only by default because they couldn’t persuade Felipe Scolari to take it.
“For managers like me the pinnacle of your career is going to be landing the England job because your unlikely to land a top four job in the Premier League.
“When Sir Alex Ferguson steps down at Manchester United you suspect they will turn to a foreign manager. Chelsea in recent years have always gone foreign and Arsenal and Manchester City are managed by foreign managers.
“And that has an adverse effect when it comes to the FA appointing a national coach.
“I accept there is massive pressure on them to get it right but the appointment of an England manager will always have a political element attached.
“It won’t always be based on performance.”
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