Sam Allardyce is speaking to a time that no longer exists in his criticism of Celtic star Cameron Carter-Vickers. The defender has been slammed by some ex-managers and pundits for his comments after the Hoops' most recent Old Firm defeat.
Celtic lost 1-0 and once again looked flat, leaving Martin O'Neill under pressure. Carter-Vickers said after the game that the Bhoys need to stop playing with a 'random' approach, with a need for a clear plan in how the team is approaching games, but he also made it clear that effort is an issue and that he and his teammates are firmly behind O'Neill.
But most have read those comments as Carter-Vickers asking the manager to solve the issues rather than doing it himself, and Allardyce is of that old-fashioned mold.
“Tell him to keep his f****** mouth shut,” Allardyce said on the No Tippy Tappy Podcast. “That’s what happened last year.”
“Martin is just like Brian Clough — or if you listen to Graeme Souness, this is what I’m talking about, this over-coaching crap — when you can’t think for yourself.
“You must have heard Graeme Souness’ story when he first went to Liverpool and went to Joe Fagan and Bob Paisley and asked, ‘What do you want me to do?’ They go, ‘What do you mean? We paid X amount of money for you and you don’t know what to do? We must have wasted our money on you.'”
Allardyce comments miss key issues
We can sit here all day and say modern players shouldn't think this way or that way, but they do. Why? Because that is how they are raised, and not by their parents, by football coaches.
They play more academy and development football than you or I can fathom, and all being overcoached by ambitious young coaches in club youth systems.
So, it's all well and good saying 'think for yourself', but they have never been coached to play that way. They don't know the way of a dressing room running itself, not anymore.
There is another conversation to be had over whether that is right, and indeed whether some of the older ways could prove useful in player development, but it's not currently how things work.
Beyond that, Carter-Vickers has been one of the players to have stood up and played pretty well through this poor run, saving two goals during that Old Firm clash, so he is doing his job. It's not always easy to get everyone else in the team to do the same, and that is the job of the manager.
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