Are foreign managers really blocking the way of Britain’s best and brightest? FP busts Sam Allardyce’s chops with cold hard numbers, pie charts and a bit of banter.

When Chuck Met Sammy
On an unusually warm West Bromwich night in February 1989, Sam Allardyce woke up from his sleep feeling musty beneath the sheets. The spirit of Charles Reep was sitting at the foot of his bed. He was inspecting Sam’s dunking bird. He thought it was pretty nifty, how the bird bobbed up and down and up again and told Sam so.
Sam, scared witless, asked him what he was doing there. Charles told him to not worry, he wasn’t dead yet, that this was just an out-of-body experience. Sam asked him what it felt like. Charles said it was depressing, and not unlike Manchester. Sam thought to himself that he quite liked Manchester.