Sam Allardyce claims he could have taken Everton into Premier League top four
Former Everton boss Sam Allardyce has reflected on his time as manager, claiming he would have wanted to take the club into the top four with more time in the Goodison Park hot seat.
Allardyce was appointed as Ronald Koeman’s successor on Merseyside in November 2017, where he would guide the Toffees to an 8th place finish in the Premier League.
However the former England boss wasn’t given the opportunity to manage a full season at Everton, and was promptly replaced with Marco Silva in the summer of 2018.
Now in charge of relegation-threatened West Brom, Allardyce spoke out during a recent press conference (via The Liverpool Echo) about where he would liked to have taken Everton if he had more time. He said:
“I thought that Newcastle was gonna be the big one for me when I moved there. And then Everton, when I got that one, on Everton particularly, on the amount of money they had to spend, because that would then be a big club.
“Manchester City have become a big club now on the fact that they’ve spent at least £450million just on defenders. So Everton had not as much spending power as that, but certainly in the way they’ve gone, have had big spending power.
“So that would have made them – or if I had still been there as obviously I think I would be, well I would say that – but if I’d have had that spending power, I would have been wanting them to get them into the top four and be one of the top-four teams.”
A man can dream
Whether Allardyce was unfairly sacked as Everton boss or not, it would be difficult to argue that the West Brom manager could have done a better job in the transfer market than Carlo Ancelotti has done during his short time at the club.
We can’t truthfully know that Allan and James Rodriguez wouldn’t have also accepted the proposition of working under Allardyce at USM Finch Farm, but we do know that Ancelotti’s pull as an icon of football helped grease the wheels on those negotiations.
During his brief spell as manager, Allardyce spent around £50million on two players – Theo Walcott and Cenk Tosun. Both players have since been shipped out on loan, unwanted by their parent club.
Maybe those two players aren’t indicative of Allardyce’s ability to spend money, but Ancelotti does seem like the better option to lead us forward and potentially into Europe over a man who did very little except agitate Everton supporters.
In other Everton news, Fabrizio Romano has explained what he believes Everton will do about their Moise Kean situation next summer.