Andy Brassell: Is Big Sam's record under threat at Palace?

Andy Brassell
23 January 2017

Sam Allardyce is known for getting the job done, but is taking time to get to grips with the task at Crystal Palace

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Sam Allardyce is taken as a guarantee of staving off relegation but have we, and Crystal Palace, assumed too much, asks Andy Brassell?

"All of a sudden it feels as if Palace are in a genuine battle, and not just due to their own shortcomings. Even if David Moyes has appeared to be merrily writing off the chances of his own Sunderland side, Hull and Swansea are beginning to look competitive again."

As the late, great Graham Taylor or Steve McClaren would acknowledge, resuming life in the coaching rank and file after having the England job is not easy. When that experience is rather more truncated - in extraordinary circumstances, let's not forget - it must be even more so.

Still, Crystal Palace must have expected a bit more of an immediate impact when Sam Allardyce took the reins in December, succeeding Alan Pardew. Hiring Allardyce is about buying into a certain philosophy, but it also carries a certain expectation. Many of us though that his arrival at Selhurst Park shut down one arm of the relegation scrap, with Palace now essentially safe. Instead Palace are 2.77/4 to suffer the drop.

Many of us had also doubted whether Palace were ever in genuine trouble in the first place, given the quality of their playing staff. Compared with the other teams semi-permanently moored in the bottom six, it looks even better. What would Sunderland or Hull give for Christian Benteke, Loïc Rémy or Wilfried Zaha?

Yet five games into Big Sam's Selhurst tenure and here we are, looking at a Palace team in the bottom three and with a total of one point from the new boss' five matches in charge, garnered from a draw at out-of-form Watford on his debut.

All of a sudden it feels as if Palace are in a genuine battle, and not just due to their own shortcomings. Even if David Moyes has appeared to be merrily writing off the chances of his own Sunderland side, the previously written off (not least, admittedly, in this column) Hull and Swansea are beginning to look competitive again.

These two are both significant, of course, in that they also have new coaches, even if both Marco Silva and Paul Clement are - for different reasons - considered punts in desperate times rather than the safety-first sort of option that Allardyce is supposed to represent.

Swansea, of course, pulled off the shock result of the weekend by winning at Liverpool, and even if they predictably had to ride considerable pressure, they showed mettle and freshness, with new signing Tom Carroll influential. Hull's loss at Chelsea was (rightly) overshadowed by the serious injury to Ryan Mason, but they were compact and competitive away to the side which is clearly the division's best as stands.

Swansea's consistency is still to be tested and quite how far Hull, a club that's been in crisis for a while, can go under Marco Silva is still open to debate - and if the Tigers emerge from the forthcoming mini-run of Premier League fixtures with Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal even a point or two better off, they will be very pleased. A glimmer of hope is quite welcome in both cases, anyway, in the absence of any guarantees.

More of the latter was expected at Palace. Allardyce has made familiar noises about his squad needing to get used to his methods, and about their fight to get away from the bottom three going right to the end of the season. The differences are clear, though. The quality at his disposal is greater here than it was at Sunderland - but conversely, he has less time to work his magic.

Both coach and club probably have sore heads over recent misfortunes but, drawing on the parts of Saturday's display against Everton in which they held grimly on, they must quickly find what they have in common in order to preserve their status, and Allardyce's record of never being relegated, of course.

Koeman tasked with continuing to find motivation

On the other side of the divide at Selhurst Park, Everton confirmed their excellent recent form with their win, secured late on by Seamus Coleman. Their motivation and zip was clear. The question is, how does Ronald Koeman keep it going? They're still five points behind Manchester United in sixth, so to maintain a sense of targets and upward mobility will be hard. Over to the coach to convince

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