Sam Allardyce will restore confidence to England side, says FA chief Dan Ashworth

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Giuseppe Muro25 July 2016

Sam Allardyce was today backed to galvanise the England team after their Euro 2016 humiliation at the hands of Iceland.

FA technical director Dan Ashworth said Allardyce would help win over the public, as the 61-year-old former West Ham boss was being presented at St George’s Park this morning.

Ashworth, who was on the FA’s three-man recruitment panel charged with the task of appointing Roy Hodgson’s successor, said: “Sam is a brilliant man-manager and he will be great at galvanising the players, the supporters and the nation.”

Asked whether Allardyce fitted into the FA’s England DNA philosophy for elite player development, Ashworth said: “There’s a misnomer about that. Sam at Bolton played some super stuff. At Sunderland, Jermain Defoe is hardly a great big target man.

“He’s a good coach and good coaches get the best out the players they have at their disposal. We think we have got a lot of good, young technical players. There’s a lot of growth in those players and they will be better for the experience they have just had [at the Euro finals].

“Sam is a good coach, he’s an acute tactician and he will get the best out of them.

“We all need picking up and leading into hopefully a successful qualifying campaign for [the World Cup in] Russia and then on in to the tournament itself and I am sure Sam will be absolutely ideal for that.

“The sign of a good coach or manager is that they add value to teams and I think Sam over his long and distinguished career has added value to the teams he has been in charge of.

“There is lots of innovation going on here at St George’s Park around sports psychology, nutrition, strength and conditioning and Sam has got a track record of buying in to all of those things and fully utilising them around his teams.”

The FA have been in talks with their Croatian counterparts over a friendly on September 1 which would be Allardyce’s first game as England manager. England’s first World Cup qualifier, in Slovakia, would come three days later.

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