Big Sam, Roy and Neil enjoy another farewell tour

Anyone wondering why Sam Allardyce is back in the Premier League could take one look at Chelsea’s performance at Arsenal and think; why not?

Seeing Frank Lampard trusted with the keys to a supposedly top-of-the-range team must have blown away any doubts Big Sam had that he could still do a job.

And so a season which began with Steven Gerrard, Lampard and Scott Parker on a touchline near you will end with Sam, Roy Hodgson and Neil Warnock back in management and Harry Redknapp sounding eager to join them.

Gerrard, Lampard, Eddie Howe, Parker and Graham Potter were the new wave of English managers. Boasting the laptops, casual knitwear and white-soled trainers the old guard could only dream of, they were homegrown coaching’s last bulwark against the superstar managers of Europe and their lock on the English game’s biggest jobs.

That went well. Gary O’Neil, Parker’s low-key successor at Bournemouth, and Newcastle’s Howe are flying the flag for the new breed but elsewhere Gerrard and Potter are back on the sofa, Parker has been sacked twice and Lampard is sailing very close to joining him.

In their absence the English face of management has taken on a more jowly, weather-beaten hue with Hodgson back at Crystal Palace and Allardyce asked to rescue Leeds.

‘I had accepted I had retired because that is what everyone has been saying. [But] I have never felt old enough to retire.’ That was Hodgson’s explanation for agreeing to return to Palace in March.

‘The way I feel doesn’t tell me that,’ added the 75-year-old before proving the point by leading a team that had not won in three months to four wins and a draw from six games.

Hodgson, like 68-year-old Allardyce, experienced relegation in his last job at Watford – which suggests the need to wash away a bad taste might be a motivation.

But the Palace boss hinted the short-term nature of such an assignment – he joined Watford on a five-month deal last January – is also a factor.

‘There has always been an opening there for a project such as this one,’ he said. ‘There might be another one that comes up but I don’t actively seek them out.’

Neil Warnock, tasked with keeping Huddersfield in the Championship back in February, knows that feeling. The 74-year-old has had more farewell gigs than Elton John but the jobs keep coming.

With one loss from their last eight games the Terriers are on the brink of safety and Warnock admits, at his age, a spot of firefighting appeals more than a long stay.

‘I’ve always enjoyed working from the end of February… you go into a club and you forget all the tactics and everything else; the bottom line is the minimum requirement is effort,’ he said.

‘I won’t be doing anything until the end of next February but I wouldn’t write off coming back.’

Why do yesterday’s men think they still have it? Because the evidence suggests they do. See you next year, old chaps.

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