Search icon

Football

09th Oct 2015

Big Sam has just made history and it has nothing to do with competitive eating

King of the North

Darragh Murphy

Who ya gonna call? Sam Allardyce.

Sunderland have tried everything – the foreign eccentric, the traditional Englishman, Dick Advocaat – and now they’ve landed at Big Sam’s door.

Allardyce has officially been unveiled as the new Black Cats boss as Sunderland continue their never-ending relegation battle.

The appointment means that Allardyce is now the only man to have managed both Newcastle and Sunderland which is a pretty impressive stat.

Big Sam is in for an atrocious response from the travelling support when Sunderland host bottom of the table Newcastle in two weeks as he is not exactly remembered fondly at St. James Park after Magpies fans turned on him for his style of play and his 33% win ratio.

Can he turn Sunderland’s fortunes around? Unless he appoints a backroom staff of Pep Guardiola, Luis Enrique and Alex Ferguson, we’re not too sure.

The FootballJOE quiz: Were you paying attention? – episode 10