Thursday 23 February 2017 11:24, UK
Sam Allardyce knows all about the rigours of a relegation battle but his latest challenge hasn't gone to plan just yet. Soccer Saturday's Jonny Phillips meets the Crystal Palace boss to talk tactics, psychology and why he wants steel over style...
Of all the managers fighting relegation from the Premier League right now, Sam Allardyce would appear best equipped to win the battle.
There are far more strings to his bow than just being a firefighter, as shown by his sustained success at Bolton Wanderers, but he has become the go-to person when a club is down on its luck and hoping for a change in fortunes.
Yet eight league games into his tenure at Crystal Palace, the upturn in results that supporters would have hoped for has not materialised. A 2-0 win away at Bournemouth is Allardyce's only victory since taking charge at the end of December.
"It's not about the technical side of the game, there are a lot of very good technical players here," Allardyce says, speaking to Sky Sports' Soccer Saturday ahead of a weekend clash with fellow strugglers Middlesbrough.
"It's about us fighting a bit harder, fighting for the cause and being more determined to get results. It is about results now over performances. The game has always been about results over performances really; if you can play attractive football and win, that's a bonus, but if you can't, we're in a results business.
"If you can't win, don't lose and if we'd done that more often we wouldn't be in the difficult situation we're in now."
The turnaround hasn't been as quick as I would have liked. People will look at my track record and say, 'Sam will do it' but I can't do it on my own, the players have got to do it for me.
Only Sunderland sit below the Eagles in the table and comparisons are being made with Allardyce's last Premier League job, when he guided the Wearsiders to safety from a seemingly hopeless league position last season with a late surge in results.
"Sunderland started to change about now but I had been there a lot longer," Allardyce says. "Getting here in late December meant that there wasn't a lot of time to assess the players.
"The turnaround hasn't been as quick as I would have liked. People will look at my track record and say, 'Sam will do it' but I can't do it on my own, the players have got to do it for me.
"But then you look at what has happened at Swansea with Paul [Clement] and people are looking for that change around immediately.
"We just haven't had that but there is still enough time to come between now and the end of the season to get that three wins out of four or four out of five. We can have that little run - we'd have liked it quicker, obviously - but somewhere along the line, that run of undefeated games which took us away from the bottom at Sunderland last year has to come."
Despite the match-winning qualities of his team going forward it is at the back that Palace have struggled all season, with just two clean sheets in the league. Allardyce has been frustrated at his attempts to sure up the defensive side of their game, but makes the point that this doesn't come at the expense of the side's potential on the ball.
"However much we've talked about not conceding goals it still hasn't happened on the pitch. My major objective is to convince the players that if we start from the basis of a clean sheet we are going to get out of trouble. We need to get those clean sheets quickly. If we don't do that it's always a minimum of two goals to win a game and, realistically, when you're down at the bottom, scoring two in a game is very difficult.
There's a seven-team league now and we've got to try and finish on top.
"I'm not stopping us playing with the ball though. I'm just saying when we haven't got the ball, the opposition can't score against us. That's not taking away from anything we do with the ball. People seem to get confused about that, saying, 'All he's interested in is clean sheets!' I'm not, because we have to score a goal to win. But having the responsibility out of possession as a team and working hard as a unit is the main aim for us."
Allardyce has brought a psychologist into the club's Beckenham training base in a bid to improve the mental strength of his team, but believes his players need to take more individual responsibility for their frame of mind.
"I think there's a little bit too much fear because of the negativity and criticism they have had," he says. "They've got to switch that off and stay focused."
Does that suggest the players are listening to criticism from external voices? "The noise is too noisy! They've got to shut the noise off, but whether they do or they don't, you can only tell them. They spend a long time away from the football club so you don't really know whether they do listen to the noise or not."
Saturday's visitors Middlesbrough are one of the teams in the mini-league at the bottom, which Allardyce says has developed in recent weeks.
"It's now become a fight with seven clubs. We've got Bournemouth downwards and I think it's probably unlikely anybody else gets dragged in from above that on 30 points. There's a seven-team league now and we've got to try and finish on top of that seven-team league and we're going to do our best to do that."
Allardyce has been here before - but survival now depends on those in his team who haven't been in the situation of getting to grips with life at the bottom.
Watch more of the extended interview with Sam Allardyce on Soccer Saturday this weekend.
