London:
Former England manager Sam Allardyce has acknowledged his role as an expert escape artist as he prepares to carry out his mission to save struggling West Brom from punishment in the Premier League.
The man who tried to brand himself as a defense specialist was parachuted to save his eighth Premier League club, Baggis, from a drop.
Newcomers West Brom are 19th in the table, but only three points behind the Premier League for third place.
Allardyce led Bolton to Europe and led West Ham to progress, achievements that helped him, in short, earn shots during his England career.
But his exploits of Blackburn, Sunderland, Crystal Palace and Everton continue to be his definitions, a fact the 66-year-old is now comfortable with.
“In some clubs we’ve only done it until the end of the season. I’ve told the owners ‘now I’ve saved you, go and find the man you want,'” he said.
“So I’ve moved on, and the clubs have moved on. And then later someone comes down the line and says ‘Sam did it first, can he do it again?’
“It wasn’t like that over the years. It was about building your reputation as a good manager in all departments, and finally building a reputation for Bolton where he was.”
Allardyce, whose team hosts local rivals Aston Villa on Sunday, said he had forgotten most of it.
“I already had references from my partner who called me ‘Red Adair’ (a famous oil good fire extinguisher). “I can’t get away from that tag.”
The new West Brom boss has been out of management since leaving Everton in May 2018 but the Premier League’s greed proved too much to resist.
“It’s the kind of excitement you need,” said Allardyce, who resigned from England in 2016 after just one match following a newspaper sting. “It gives you energy. It makes you feel important,
“When you’ve become accustomed to the level of probe I’ve been through all these years, it’s embedded in your DNA.”
