Football managers are pragmatists. All of them. Without exception. They do what is best for their team, because that is what will keep them in a job. If this means putting the reserves out at Old Trafford, or in the FA Cup, so be it. If local talent cannot get a look in for cheaply acquired, physically imposing West Africans, then that is the way of the world.
So when any manager climbs aboard his high horse to condemn the policies of a rival, one can guarantee it will be the blink of an eye before his worthy moralising is exposed as entirely bogus. Enter Sam Allardyce, the manager of Blackburn Rovers, who deplored the substance of a recent match between Portsmouth and Arsenal, because neither starting line-up contained an English player, for the first time in the history of the English game.
Clearly, this is not a good thing. Arsenal’s cosmopolitan nature is well known, but it says something about standards of youth development that Portsmouth, a club absolutely on its uppers and desperate for the cut-price fix that a home produced player represents, could not find on its staff one teenager capable of making an impression on the first-team.
Even so, while there may be a lecture on the perils of short-term thinking to be delivered at Fratton Park, Allardyce is probably not the man to give it. And so it has proved. For, within days of his pious disapproval, it was revealed that in a table listing the percentage of English players in the professional squads at the 20 Premier League clubs, Blackburn were bottom, with just 11 of 38. So a manager does what he has to do. Blackburn (20th) are 28.9 per cent English, as opposed to Arsenal (16th), who are 37.5 per cent, and Portsmouth (12th), who are 40 per cent. Allardyce will claim his percentage of first-team regulars is higher, but that is because there is an English contingent among his best players, not because he is on an evangelical mission. He picks the XI he thinks will win a match, as he has always done.
Indeed, Allardyce’s managerial career and reputation was forged on a policy one might argue was extraordinarily harmful to the English game. The springboard for his success at Bolton Wanderers came in the 2002-03 season when Allardyce’s team stayed up at the expense of West Ham United. This happened thanks to the temporary recruitment of a number of foreign players on loan. Indeed, in a 2-2 draw against Arsenal on April 26, 2003, Bolton started with 11 foreign players and at one stage had five loan signings on the pitch. Meanwhile, West Ham went down having blooded many of Fabio Capello’s present England squad, including Joe Cole, Michael Carrick, Glenn Johnson and Jermain Defoe (Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand having already left), with David James in goal.
West Ham had no cause for complaint. They were poorly managed by Glenn Roeder that season and Allardyce made full use of his resources and the loan system; but spare us the sermons, please. Every manager does what it takes to thrive or survive. Avram Grant, Arsene Wenger, Allardyce: no different, any of them.