After comments about Everton rejecting the chance to sign Erling Haaland circled once again over the last few days, something else Duncan Ferguson said in the NoTippyTappyFootball podcast via WilliamHill was that he believes former manager Sam Allardyce was unlucky to lose his job at Everton.

Ferguson said:

“Sam did a great job really to get the club in a good position. He was really unfortunate to lose his job and he shouldn’t have lost his job. I’ve been a big backer of Sam for some time and we’ve always got on well.”

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Ferguson added:

“What I loved about Sam was that he was straight. He’s a straight fella, a straight talker and tactically very good. He knew his game plan and communicated that with the players and we went and executed it. He knew exactly what he wanted. He communicated that with the players, the players liked him as well, they loved him. I think that’s an important part of being a manager. There was no ‘BS’ with him and that’s what I liked. He was straight and the players liked that as well because they performed, didn’t they?”

Allardyce took over Everton at the end of November after a terrible start to the season under Ronald Koeman and was undefeated in his first 7 games including a 1-1 draw away at Liverpool. His next 10 games however would see only two wins, with 7 defeats. Sam was brought in by owner Farhad Moshiri to ensure safety and to steady the ship as Everton flirted with relegation before the sacking of Ronald Koeman.

Everton would go on to finish the season in 8th place, the joint-highest position Everton have finished since Sam Allardyce departed and from someone looking in, they could argue that Allardyce was unlucky to lose his job, but when you look at Everton’s end of season stats under Big Sam compared to the rest of the league, they are not the best viewing.

For shots on target, shots on goal and chances created they sat bottom of the league, and 19th for dribbles attempted. Those four stats alone showed how poor his tactics were whilst in charge of Everton. I remember on Boxing Day we started a back five at home to WBA and the game played out to a 0-0 with no shots on target registered. Some Christmas present right?

I love Duncan Ferguson, he is my hero but sorry Dunc, I do not agree with you on this one.

What do you think about Duncan’s comments?

Was Allardyce unfortunate to lose his job?