Why Big Sam has more chance than Villas-Boas of being a Prem boss in 2014

By Brian Reade

Published 22:59 24/06/11

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On Wednesday two tanned men stood inside their new grounds proudly holding up the club's shirt with their name plastered across the back.

One of them, a young foreign star, cost a world record fee. The other, a veteran journeyman, came on a free.

It's a summer image we're well used to. The difference being this one is a completely false one which has bizarrely crept into our game. Andre Villas-Boas and Sam Allardyce aren't players but managers, and those shirts will never go near their backs (in every sense with Big Sam).

Indeed, statistically, the only thing likely to go near one of those backs within a year, is a chairman's boot, as he kicks them though the exit.

But at least the falseness was in keeping with some of the words both had just uttered to the media.

Allardyce typically talked himself up as a modern-day coaching genius, quoting the name on his birth certificate three times, as in "I want to show the world Sam Allardyce is still around."

He claimed that if he were to get West Ham promoted from the Championship he would have achieved "the ultimate" in his career. This from a man who only last year told us his talents made him more suited to managing Inter Milan or Real Madrid than Bolton or Blackburn. 

He angrily denied the accusation that he plays tedious football, instead bragging that he's entertained fans at every club he's managed. Which reminded me of an email I received when he took Blackburn back to his old club Newcastle, and won:

"We were woeful today but there was a consolation,"  wrote a Geordie mate. "I'd rather watch my own meat and veg frying in our chip pan than watch an Allardyce team every week."

The new West Ham boss got one thing spot-on though when he said football today is run on perception.

And the perception of Villas-Boas is that he is management's Next Great Thing. Helped in no small measure by following the same career path as the last Next Great Thing, Jose Mourinho.

Special One II told the media that it was understandable that everyone expected trophies from him after winning a quadruple at Porto, and he was focussed on winning all four for Chelsea next season. Not just winning them mind, but doing so by playing attacking football.

Now if that sounds like the words of a young manager who has yet to hit the inevitable wall of failure, it is. But when you've only had one full season in the job with a team so dominant domestically it has won seven titles in the past nine years, why contemplate failure?

This is a huge gamble by Chelsea and they would do well to reign in the hype about a young coach who's only ever worked in his homeland and only been successful with one club. Ask Juande Ramos. Or Alex Ferguson.

This appointment is the equivalent of Manchester United bringing Ferguson down from all-conquering Aberdeen after he'd won the European Cup-Winner's Cup in 1983 and demanding the title in his first season.

Actually it's worse. Fergie was 41 when he first conquered Europe, had been managing for seven years, and, unlike Porto, there were two better teams domestically than his. Yet it was another three years before Fergie moved to United and another seven years before he won them the title.

So no pressure on Villas-Boas. Especially knowing Roman Abramovich, who has been through seven coaches in as many years, will give him no time to build.

I once labelled Allardyce football management's Viagra Man. He can get you up and keep you up. Villas-Boas is more a testosterone injection. A youthful drug you hope will pay instant dividends.

I know (through research, obviously) what's more reliable. And although Big Sam has become an unfashionable joke figure and Villas-Boas has pundits drooling over his potential, I know which one of them has the best chance of being a Premier League manager in a year's time.

The one with the least chance of fitting into that new shirt.

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