[Slick_Footwork]

Personally I think we should wait until the end of the season to decide if Allardyce stays next season...

I don't see the point rushing to decide now. Let's see if there is any further improvement or deterioration of the performances between now and the end of the season...

Would I want him to stay? I'll decide at the end of the season, but my instinct now is if there is money to invest, yes.

I think if you're going to spend, you want a manager who knows a player and Sam certainly knows that. We saw in the summer that you can waste millions on players in the wrong positions / with the wrong attitude / not up the job. I don't think we would make those sort of mistakes with Allardyce at the helm. We have seen IMO a massive improvement since the January window, despite having no budget to spend and having to wheel and deal with outgoings just to free up wages for loans. Had he been in charge of the summer budget, when we did spend, I think we'd be in a much better position.

And while I acknowledge he hasn't been able to fix the goalscoring, fixing every problem might've been a bridge too far with just a couple of incoming loans and no money. I don't think this would be a problem in the Championship and if you look at Allardyce's record historically, his West Ham team outscored our promoted Bilic team. We have players who can get us goals at that level even if a couple leave.

Would I want him to stay if there is no money, no. I don't think he stay would anyway in this circumstance. But if there's no money, then I don't see the point. We'll struggle with any manager at the helm in these circumstances so might as well appoint someone who would at least give us a 'feel good factor', as I acknowledge Allardyce isn't widely liked. Although IMO Big Sam is light years ahead of the likes of Appleton in terms of managerial quality.

Slick, I agree with many of the points you make. I do not see the point of changing the manager now (for one thing it would cost us in compensation, money we don't have), I cannot see any improvement a new manager would make at this stage of the season. I also agree that Allardyce is both well known and, historically, has been pretty astute with signings so, if he was to stay next year, we may be able to attract some players decent for the Championship. Personally, i don't want him to stay as I'd rather see us start afresh with a new, younger face but that has its risks as well.

Probably like all managers, Allardyce has his favourites but I cannot, for the life of me, understand his reluctance to play Robinson ahead of Robson-Kanu and his refusal to include Grosicki in the match day squad. Our team is basically pedestrian, particularly the midfield and the striker, so any injection of pace must be a priority. Against Newcastle, we were crying out for someone to run at their defence - it was a game where a point was no good - but the solution was Kanu. I don't think for one minute that either Robinson or Grosicki are EPL standard players, but we have precious few of those.

I think the other issue is Dowling. There has to be a positive relationship between him and the manager; we saw it deteriorate with Bilic although I suspect we'll never fully find out why. Allardyce is a strong character who will be vociferous in his demands for players - I wonder how much Dowling is prepared to argue with his lord and master that he has to support his manager financially. I also wonder how much Allardyce, at his age, wants the grind of the Championship on a severely limited budget.

I agree that there are some curious decisions from Allardyce. Robinson is one of them, I'd favour him over Pereira as a starter, but certainly over Robson-Kanu as an option from the bench too.

The interesting thing is that both Allardyce and Bilic seem to agree about the same favs and non favs. Under Bilic, Robinson was always the first player dropped even when that wasn't merited by his performances. Grant took his place as soon as he arrived, despite the fact Robinson was probably one of our best performers up to that point, scoring 2 against Chelsea. Likewise, Grosicki was frozen out by both. Both seem to worship the ground Sawyers and Robson-Kanu walk on. And while neither are in the 1st team now, they were historically selected by both when most thought they should've been well down the pecking order. I suspect it's got something to do with behavior at training and/or professionalism, but that's purely speculation.

And these curious decisions are why I'll reserve my judgement on if we should keep Allardyce until the end of season. I do think he knows what it takes to get promoted though, which is more than a lot of managers. I think he would give us a better chance of promotion than say, Appleton or McIness.

Regarding Dowling... he and Bilic fell out over Krovinovic I believe. Dowling didn't want Krovinovic and wanted Gallagher instead. Dowling signed Gallagher and said Krovi was out of reach when he hadn't made a genuine attempt to bring him back from Benfica. Bilic got wind of the situation and didn't like it, which that lead to the public pressure by Bilic to bring Krovi back. Hence why Krovi became the main topic of press conferences, was called the "main target" and why we were constantly reminded that the "players were asking about him everyday". The whole thing was because Bilic needed to prove a point that Dowling couldn't overrule him. As a result of the pressure, Dowling cracked and we signed Krovi...

It's worth note that on the first game after the window closed - Southampton away - Krovi was in the squad days after arriving in the country and Gallagher was left out completely despite being signed weeks before and being man of the match in the cup against Brentford. We were terrible against Southampton and Bilic was grilled by the press about Gallagher, he must've been fit as he played 120 minutes against Brentford weeks before, and that's why Bilic eventually did select Gallagher. He was stubborn enough not to, but had no choice after press and fan pressure...

The whole disagreement resulted in the waste of a loan as we had two players who do the same job.

Who is in the wrong is open to debate. Gallagher is arguably a better player than Krovi, but Gallagher wasn't the player that Bilic wanted. Dowling should've either backed the manager or been man enough to tell Bilic he didn't feel Krovi was good enough rather than coming up with some bogus excuse why we couldn't sign him. After that, the relationship probably was irreparable despite the fact Dowling eventually bowed to Bilic and signed Krovi.

Hegazi sale followed which was obviously another decision by Dowling, as Bilic openly admitted he didn't know about it. But the relationship was gone at that point.

I suspect Gallagher wasn't the only Dowling signing either. Kipre would've also been a Dowling addition as Bilic said at a press conference that he "wasn't on the list of targets". Ironically, he's another player who had the same fate under both Bilic and Allardyce. Maybe he's not a good trainer either or both agree he's not good enough. You can tell the Bilic signings as they come straight in - Krovi, Ivanovic, Grant, Grady

Will Dowling get on with Allardyce? I guess it depends if he's learnt from his mistakes and chooses a more honest approach. I don't think Allardyce will stay unless he's got some assurances on money to spend anyway, because he's not daft enough to stay with half the side out of contract - including his mainstay Kyle Bartley - and no cash to replace them. So we might find that Allardyce walks anyway if Dowling is honest with him, because I suspect we will not have any cash. Dowling will probably prefer to deal with someone less demanding in that scenario too, someone who is just happy to have a job at Championship level like the aforementioned managers.