Sam Allardyce, who currently manages newly promoted English team, West Ham United, comes in for a lot of stick.

He coaches his teams to play ugly soccer. To play ‘route one’ or long ball soccer, where the ball is simply launched towards a big guy near the opposition goal in hopes of causing some havoc and getting a lucky break.

No creativity, just boring, blunt force. Nothing attractive to watch or cheer for.

In short, it’s the emblem of the worst stereotypes of the English game.

But I don’t think it’s fair.

When ‘Big Sam’ managed Bolton in the first half of the noughties, for a time, he had his team playing the most exciting, attacking soccer around. Because he had two skillful attackers in Jay-Jay Okocha and Youri Djorkaeff.

Okocha was the heartbeat of one of the Nigerian national team, a talented ‘no. 10’ who directed the attack for club and country.

Djorkaeff played on the 1998 World Cup winning French squad alongside Zidane. He played behind a lone striker for both France and Bolton, drifting from side to side like a (not very speedy) ‘floating winger’ or ‘central winger.’

Allardyce gave both of these players a free reign in midfield and attack. Yes, he had ‘boring’ bulldozer of striker upfront to feed off the delicious efforts of Okocha and Djorkaeff and a pretty boring midfield behind them, but the efforts of his two ‘fantasistas’ made Bolton’s games amazing viewing.

What I believe Allardyce does is get the best out of the players available to him. After that Bolton team, he never really had those kinds of players on his squad. If the West Ham ownership were to give him sufficient funds to not only shore the most pressing needs, but also buy a creative, luxury player (Aston Villa might be ready to ditch Charles N’Zogbia), I think you would see him put out a much more interesting side. What he doesn’t do is ask players to play beyond their abilities.