Sam Allardyce Quotes

We all know how management works. If you don't win things, as has happened before, people start to call for your head.

When I see my staff take a step back because I've lost my cool about something food-related, I say never apologise for your standards. If someone doesn't meet them, then you should explain that and that you want it changed. I want my staff to be like that, too.

I knew in my gut that there was something wrong with a system that couldn't fire its incompetents, and I had my share of incompetent college teachers.

For example, I wouldn't hesitate to sit somebody down if he wasn't performing, even if he was the No. 1 player in the world. I've been sat down before.

No manager in the world gets good results all the time and you know there's people always ready to have a snipe. In fact I'm my own biggest critic, I really am. Because my own standards are so high, I criticise myself behind the scenes more than perhaps I should, according to people who know me well.

If my results are not good I will lose my job.

But I would defy anyone to go back over the years and tell me anyone whose career I've ruined, anyone whom I've driven out of the service, anyone I've fired from a job.

This is a tough business, and you're asked to do a job. And part of doing that job is to rate and to do well and to perform, and at certain points, when people are unable to do the job they're hired to do, what happens is people are let go. Their contract is not renewed.

When you take a director off a project, that makes a person feel humiliated because everyone knows it. But we're responsible because we put them in that position.

I'm not arrogant enough to think that I will be in a job through anything. Any manager will tell you that you have to win games, and you have to get results. You have to perform.

The players who play have to perform. If they don't, then they will be replaced. That has always been the case.

If I am going to be phased out by whatever powers, then I want people to know that it is not because I am bad at my work.

When you play quarterback and the offense doesn't play well, a lot of that is because of the quarterback. You're going to receive the criticism.

Good parts just don't fall off trees. I try to be very careful about what sort of projects I attack. There's an audience out there that expects high standards from me.

You have to earn your job every day.

Criticism comes with the territory when you don't win games.

I'm very critical of myself and I know the levels I want to achieve so I'm very hard on myself. So the staff and players are very hard on me as well, which is what I want as I want to get to as high a level as possible.

The last thing I'd ever want to see is another manager being sacked. I certainly don't like the phrase 'sacking season.'

You have to prove yourself year in and year out, and if you can't get the job done, every team is going to go and try and find somebody else that can.

Every year you've got somebody coming in and trying to kick you off, so you have to prove yourself. Even for the coaches, too. Their jobs are always on the line.

Make sure you are clear about the expectations your boss has for you.

I've fired quite a few, but I've never had an employee quit on me.

If there's competition in training, then the training is intense, and then you have the pressure of a weekend that if you don't put in good performances, then your place is maybe up for grabs.

I think all managers have to be so demanding.

The absolute worst part of my job is having to cut people. I have to cut people after every show, that's just how it goes. But I don't judge you on wins and losses. What I do care about is a great fight.