How did Sam Allardyce not see that one coming?

As modern manager types go, so defiantly and ruggedly old school is Sam Allardyce in the cut of his jib, that every time you see and hear him it’s as if he’s walked out of a Pathe newsreel from back in the sepia-tinted day when shorts were unfeasibly baggy, even the youngest players looked older than your granddad and the WM formation was at the very cutting edge of tactical science.

All nonsense, of course, since surely only a most seasoned sophisticate, wise in the ways of the football world from bootroom to boardroom, would have made it all the way from Limerick to the Premier League and, ultimately, to “the second most important job” in England.

So my first reaction on learning Allardyce — formerly ‘Big Sam’, henceforth ‘Telegraph Sam’ — had been stung in a classic media ambush was simply this: how on earth did he not see that one coming? If I was made England manager — and at the rate they’ve been dispensing with successful candidates, I can’t entirely rule it out — very high on my list of ‘Things To Watch Out For’ would be just the merest mention of a proposed meeting with unknown businessmen from a Far East firm anxious to establish a foothold in the English football industry.