Somehow Sam Allardyce’s name gets dragged into the Newcastle United mess. Kevin Keegan is now in charge of the increasingly disintegrating side but the focus is still on Big Sam and his failure at St James’ Park.
There have been cynical remarks about the fitness level at the club when Big Sam was there. But Allardyce has blasted all accusations suggesting that the players were not physically sound during his tenure at the club and says:
There wasn’t anything wrong with match fitness when I was there.
That’s a bit of an excuse. Sometimes fitness is a mental thing.
The fear factor can drain an awful lot out of players so that may be the problem at the moment.
There is also a lack of confidence and it can boil down to that, not a lack of match fitness.
True, Sam Allardyce did render the team in tatters, but to shove the entire blame on him would be naive. The players also share the responsibility for dragging the Magpies into the relegation quicksand.