In a BBC interview with Claire Balding Sam Allardyce says that his dream job has been to manage Manchester United ever since his days at Bolton.
The 60 year old West Ham manager, who was always there to stick up for his old friend Alex Ferguson in public, also says that his biggest disappointment in football was losing out to Steve McClaren in the running for the England job.
The immediate instinct tells us that Big Sam, while clearly a very good manager, might not have the right managerial philosophy for the Manchester United job.
Perhaps unfairly, he has been seen as a manger who reverts to long ball tactics in order to keep his teams safe from relegation. In fairness, he has mainly managed teams who are more concerned with consolidation than winning titles.
But he has confounded the critics and many West Ham fans this season by taking the club to a heady fourth position at one stage and playing delightful football along the way.
While we don’t think that Manchester United fans would have unanimously taken kindly to Allardyce taking over at a club so synonymous with spectacular, passing football, he might have surprised a few and at least fared better than David Moyes did in his disastrous season at the club.
