Allardyce in for Alonso - NIXON

wanderlust wrote:

Lofty_Love wrote:Fans moan about loyalty and respect and then start calling the best manager we have had in a decade a 'fat cunt' because hes trying to sign a player from us who would be leaving anyway.

Laughable.

Id rather Sam signed him than Florentina.

I have to disagree about Allardyce. I must say that IMO he was the guy who walked into the club following two of the best managers we've ever had to inherit the best financial and playing staff foundations we've ever had and cock it up by creating an unsustainable model that was all very entertaining for a few years until he left us with a disaster that we're still paying for. Anyone can look good if they inherit a fortune, blow it and then walk away when the money's all spent. For a man who supposedly had BWFC at heart, he did a great job of ruining our finances, failing to prepare a succession plan, claiming the success he bought as his own success, throwing a hissy fit when he wasn't allowed to spend even more money, running off to find another rich backer at the first opportunity and then picking the flesh off our club by tempting our remaining players away. Absolute bastard who got away with blue murder by playing the media and conning the fans.

Not saying his successors did any better, but they had to focus on damage limitation and didn't have the fantastic foundations to build upon that Allardyce inherited. Sworn enemy of BWFC through and through so fuck him.

You're right he didn't leave us with a sustainable future, but you can't claim he blew a fortune, from 1999 to 2005 he spent about 4 million on transfer fees in total whilst bringing in some of the best players we've ever had. Granted big wages were spent but it was because of the likes of Campo, Djorkaeff and Okocha that we were where we were.

It certainly wasn't a given that we would get promoted when Allardyce took over and to go on to establish us in the top half of the table, get European football and a League Cup final shows he did a great job by anyone's standards.

He left before the job was done and without his scouts and transfer skill we were left with Sammy Lee bringing a host of crap players on the cheap, Allardyce brought a hell of a lot of unknown players in who would either be crap and leave quickly or be class, no other manager has managed to do that since.

wanderlust wrote:

I have to disagree about Allardyce. I must say that IMO he was the guy who walked into the club following two of the best managers we've ever had to inherit the best financial and playing staff foundations we've ever had and cock it up by creating an unsustainable model that was all very entertaining for a few years until he left us with a disaster that we're still paying for. Anyone can look good if they inherit a fortune, blow it and then walk away when the money's all spent. For a man who supposedly had BWFC at heart, he did a great job of ruining our finances, failing to prepare a succession plan, claiming the success he bought as his own success, throwing a hissy fit when he wasn't allowed to spend even more money, running off to find another rich backer at the first opportunity and then picking the flesh off our club by tempting our remaining players away. Absolute bastard who got away with blue murder by playing the media and conning the fans.

Not saying his successors did any better, but they had to focus on damage limitation and didn't have the fantastic foundations to build upon that Allardyce inherited. Sworn enemy of BWFC through and through so fuck him.

Sam didn't get us to the top 6 of the Premier League because of previous managers, thats not really fair on him. He brought some unbelievable players to this club to achieve that. He also didn't spend that much on transfers at all during his time here, I can only think of Anelka for £10million and Douif for £4million and you couldn't say that was money wasted. He spent highly on wages for older players ill give you that, but he didn't do anything massively unsustainable at all.

It was Megson who spent the big money, except he brought in mostly crap players. Its was Megson who fits your brief of inheriting a fortune (spent over 45 million), claiming others success as his own (Europe)and had fantastic foundations (a club that finished the previous season in 7th)

Sam was also the one who brought in all the advanced training technology and massively improved our facilities and backroom staff, although unfortunately that was all ruined by later managers.

Our debt has risen from £30 million to £140 million in the 5 years since Sam was here, that can't be blamed on Sam. Imagine if the money given to Megson had been given to Sam! I would bet we wouldn't be 17th in the Championship for a start.

The team which got us relegated was totally different to the team that Big Sam built and left us with, can't really blame Megson being shite on Sam.


Also who are these players he 'stole'. Nolan, Taylor, Vaz Te, Jussi etc were all regarded to be poor when they were at their end here, I don't remember anyone being massively sad when they left, it just shows how good a manager he is at using players strengths.

The big players with big wages were the icing on the cake. We could have had Messi and Ronaldo if we'd thrown enough money at it - doesn't take a genius to to do that.

What we were left with was players who were past it, massive wage bills, no youth development worthy of the name and an enforced period of austerity that inevitably led to our eventual relegation. We were in so much shit that Megson was given money to try to come up with a quick fix, but he just compounded our problems. Coyle tried to bite the bullet, but our "fans" were so used to living high on the hog that he had to be sacrificed. Hopefully the downward spiral will end under DFs tenure, but it still annoys me to think how Allardyce wasted the opportunity to secure our long-term future all for the sake of short term glory - which he then claimed credit for.

Just my opinion but it took years for the likes of Rioch (who had the best win % rate since the 1890's) and Todd (who also had a higher win rate the Allardyce) to drag us up from the lower leagues, work miracles in the transfer market and create the platform for Allardyce to blow.

I think the theory that anyone can succeed with money is blown out of the water with QPR, who have spent far more money than Sam did and find themselves glued to the bottom place (which makes me very happy every weekend ).


We weren't in loads of shit at all when Sam left, we sold Anekla for 17 million, thats more money than some Premier Leauge teams get to spent in 3 years. Megson should have easily been able to steady the ship. Owen Coyle was one goal of keeping us up with like 25% the money Megson had! I think that in itself shows how shite Megson really was.

We were quite healthy financially until Megson turned up. Given the players we had, and the money he had to spend Megson should have easily kept us up and created a decent youth set up.

£45 million could have bought some of the best youth prospects in the world, instead we spent it on the likes of Zat Knight and Elmander - we were far from a club in crisis when Sam left.

I won't dispute the things Allardyce achieved during his time here. However, I lost all respect for him when he celebrated Blackburn's equaliser against us at the Reebok a few years ago like he'd just won the Champions League! The fact Stu Holden scored the winner for us seconds later, wiping the grin of the fat fookers face was just sweet and is one of my favourite ever BWFC goals.

*Just for the record, I'm not saying Fatty should have been upset with his sides equaliser, but he could have celebrated in a more dignified manner, showing respect for the club he used to manage and claims to still support.

I agree with you on that Lt. Boon, I was pretty pissed off when he did that, but what he did for us for me outbalances that. I would have thought he looks back at doing that with regret.

I lost a bit of faith in Allardyce when he sold Gudjohnsen to Chelsea for £4 million. He should have been the striker to have built the team around.

wanderlust wrote:

I have to disagree about Allardyce. I must say that IMO he was the guy who walked into the club following two of the best managers we've ever had to inherit the best financial and playing staff foundations we've ever had and cock it up by creating an unsustainable model that was all very entertaining for a few years until he left us with a disaster that we're still paying for. Anyone can look good if they inherit a fortune, blow it and then walk away when the money's all spent. For a man who supposedly had BWFC at heart, he did a great job of ruining our finances, failing to prepare a succession plan, claiming the success he bought as his own success, throwing a hissy fit when he wasn't allowed to spend even more money, running off to find another rich backer at the first opportunity and then picking the flesh off our club by tempting our remaining players away. Absolute bastard who got away with blue murder by playing the media and conning the fans.

Not saying his successors did any better, but they had to focus on damage limitation and didn't have the fantastic foundations to build upon that Allardyce inherited. Sworn enemy of BWFC through and through so fuck him.

I agree with some of what you say, but to blame the financial mess solely on Fat Sam is wrong. Fatty Gartside and Eddie Davies should take the bulk of the abuse for that one, they were the ones who let Fat Sam (and Megson) spend the money. There's no manager in the land who can spend cash without Chairman/Owner approval.

I have little doubt that Gartside was slapping Allardyce on the back every single day of the "glory" years telling him what a great job he was doing - I'm guessing they didn't give a shite about the future when Bolton were doing well in the Premier League at that moment.

Few clubs have a long term plan because as soon as results go wrong the manager/staff are replaced, new players come in, old players leave and you're back to square one.

There aren't many clubs outside the big 4 or 5 that have been successful for many years on the trot - Stoke City are one of the few.

If Fat Sam had said he was going to stop spending on the first team and sort out a decent youth team he'd have been lynched.

Fact is that Todd and Rioch showed the way as regards the sustainable model for developing the club, vastly improving the financial position, whilst playing great football and securing a promising future - all of which went out of the window when the self-aggrandising traitor come on board. Allardyce bought a modicum of success and that's all he did (although he wasn't slow at taking the plaudits for it) We're still paying for it, and worse still, the bastard still wants to pick the carcasses out of the wreckage he left behind - even now.

wanderlust wrote:Fact is that Todd and Rioch showed the way as regards the sustainable model for developing the club, vastly improving the financial position, whilst playing great football and securing a promising future - all of which went out of the window when the self-aggrandising traitor come on board.

But Todd & Rioch were doing it in the Championship, not the PL. The one season Todd managed in the PL we were relegated in April.

wanderlust wrote:Allardyce bought a modicum of success and that's all he did (although he wasn't slow at taking the plaudits for it) We're still paying for it, and worse still, the bastard still wants to pick the carcasses out of the wreckage he left behind - even now.

A modicum? We'll be lucky to ever emulate that success and to do it on the budget he did was impressive, big clubs feared coming to Bolton for a while, qualifying for Europe through league position, should of won the league cup and having a player like Nicolas Anelka play for us.

Love him or hate him, Fat Sam generally brought players to the club who gave 100% on the pitch. If Megson & Coyle had done the same things would have been very different.

I've enjoyed lots of games managed by BSA, and the respect from other fans for a team that consistently 'punched above its weight', was also a nice feeling. The respect the team got was excellent for the relatively small amount of cash he spent. For me, Sam made one big mistake, and somebody touched on it earlier. He put in place a brilliant back up team, which ensured that we drained every last ounce of play, skill, etc., from every individual. What he didn't do, was replace the players before they were burned out. As a result, the whole bloody team was finished, with no viable replacements. This meant that he needed a lot of money to replace the vast majority of them, all in a season or so.More importantly, he needed time. He couldn't replace a whole team, but his crime, in my eyes, was that he didn't prepare for the future, and in not doing so, condemned the club to many years in the wilderness.

Natasha Whittam wrote:

terenceanne wrote:Alonso has been improving rapidly ....therefore interest from other clubs. If we don't offer him a decent contract then he's off ..... and good luck to him. The daft will be screaming about loyalty again but football is a business. If you were a 22 year old lad and could play in London or chase bikini's in Italy....what would you do?
Of course you would miss the steak n kidney pudding at the Chinese chippy but you can't have it all.

Is there a Chinese chippy in West Palm Beach?

No chippy's in Florida that I know about ....there's a couple in New York City .....sadly run by Arsenal fans I think.