West Ham game a win-win for Allardyce today

SOCCER:FAREWELL THEN, Avram. It seems the polite thing to say, polite yet in its own way insulting.

Apologies for that, it is just there may not be another opportunity because, if things do not go well for West Ham United at Ewood Park this afternoon, then Avram Grant is likely to find himself the former West Ham manager around this time tomorrow. By next week he could have departed English football once and for all.

Sadly for Grant, the omens are not good. This is a tight Premier League table – just seven points separate 12 clubs, from Wolves in 19th place to Newcastle in eighth. West Ham are only three behind Wolves, yet they feel loose.

We are approaching the halfway stage of the season so we should not get too carried away, but after going to Blackburn today, it is a trip to Fulham on St Stephen’s Day.

For a team with a spine of Green-Upson-Parker-Cole – all England internationals – that should not be daunting. It’s just that they and all Hammers know that the last time West Ham won away in the league was on the opening day of last season. There have been 26 games since – 26. Optimism can suffer.

Defeat today may not mean the Hammers will be tailed off, but, over the next week, two away losses would mean West Ham’s distance from mid-table security would be reducible only if there is drastic change at Upton Park. They are already 10 points off West Brom and have a worse goal difference. Effectively that is 11 points.

It is rarely quiet at Upton Park, it is rarely quiet anywhere when the Davids, Sullivan and Gold, pitch up, but the noises this week have been unusually indiscreet.

Grant, it is reported widely and with confidence, must win today or at Fulham. If not, then West Ham’s next home game against Everton on the 28th will become pivotal.

Surveying that date from today, however, is tricky, because it already feels as if it is all over for Avram Grant in east London. There is a book open on his successor. Can he make Everton?

In his neck of the woods they have started to call him Avram Can’t.

He is an unusual man to mock, this Israeli whose father survived Auschwitz.

That should make football stop and think about its sense of importance, but it won’t. Premier League “survival” is all about money and that, in both a direct and circular way, brings us to Sam Allardyce.

Had Allardyce been in charge of Blackburn today then it would have been worth lumping tenners on a home win. Gary Speed once revealed Allardyce never really bothered about geeing up Bolton players for games against the top four, but that he would be “at it all week” for matches against the teams around Bolton. A man whose professional attitude can be measured in percentages, Allardyce knew the effect of defeating direct rivals.

Blackburn would thus have come out to meet West Ham fully intent on terrorising goalkeeper Rob Green. Big Chris Samba and Ryan Nelsen would have launched themselves at Green when they could, and you can picture a scrappy winner followed by Allardyce sniffing his way through a “three points” post-match interview.

But Allardyce is gone, goosed by the Indian poultry farmers who have bought Blackburn. They let it be known early on that they had wanted the style of football played to be more expansive and from then on it was a matter of time before Allardyce departed.

This week that became a matter of timing.

Allardyce is now on West Ham’s radar.

The “Academy of Football” will also question his style, but right now West Ham feel the need of the rigid certainty of Allardyce football. They want to know they can plan to be a Premier League club this time next year.

But what sort of club?

West Ham want to be true to their roots in terms of play and also true to Grant, who they signed up for four years. They want to display patience on and off the park. Can they afford this?

Blackburn are 13th in the division and have stability since Allardyce recovered the failed Paul Ince experiment. But the new owners want more than stability, and who can fault their ambition?

We may fault their lack of realism, as deemed by us, but maybe they will introduce a new reality. Allardyce’s record can cloud thinking, but what if his so-far temporary replacement, Steve Kean, has listened to the new owners’ call for style and Blackburn come out playing like Barcelona?

It should not be forgotten that Allardyce split Blackburn opinion on how the game is played.

Allardyce suddenly seems to be the answer to every West Ham question and in that sense today is win-win for him. He looks better no matter who loses.

As for Avram Grant, he seems like the answer to none. For him it feels lose-lose.

Coates embodied a different time

ROY KEANE touched a nerve on Thursday, not for the last time. Criticising the Manchester United-Arsenal game last Monday night for its lack of “intensity”, among other failings, Keane said: “It’s not the game we knew 15 or 20 years ago, the one I first got involved in. I don’t think we love it the way we did years ago because of what we see every day of the week.”

It could be a natural age-related development, but “I don’t think we love it the way we did” will have been noted by many. That phrase indicates an incremental movement away from the passion that once consumed, rather than a lurch. And there is something in that idea about a steady erosion.

The notion was reinforced when news of the death of Ralph Coates came yesterday. Coates was a personal favourite, one of those players you take to as a boy and never let go, like George Armstrong at Arsenal, John Richards at Wolves and Jimmy Cleary at Glentoran. We all have lists. Coates flew around the pitch for Tottenham and Burnley.

His hair was of the Bobby Charlton comb-over variety and that made him old-fashioned in a great way. He played like he was full of beans. Coates embodied a different time in the game and a different sort of man.

Maybe it’s age. There will surely be those in 20 or 30 years talking with fondness of Andrei Arshavin, for example. How many recall Monday night, that’s another matter.