When Sam Allardyce left Bolton Wanderers there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the Trotter’s fans. The ragged army of ageing internationals and sullen malcontents that composed the Bolton Team at that point were something only Sam could nurture into bloom. I’ve always thought of him as being like Lee Marvin in the Dirty Dozen who’s given a bunch of murdering, raping and pillaging prisoners off death row and told to get them into a crack team which can venture into enemy territory and pull off the impossible – which they did. It will not have escaped the notice of football betting fans that his departure from Bolton produced chaos and his biggest, baddest boy of all, Nicholas Anelka, tamed by Big Sam, left for Chelsea almost immediately.

Then came Newcastle United where, in the 2007/8 season, he earned this demoralised team 26 points by early January only to be sacked on the basis that the new owner and the fans wanted ‘attractive’ football, forgetting, momentarily, that the first job was to er . . . stay up. They then went on to earn two points with their attractive football under Kevin Keegan until he too was dispensed with. Meanwhile, Big Sam was classified a ‘failure’ by those footballing experts who, inexplicably, can’t see the wood for the trees.

Now heÂ’s back with the task of saving Blackburn Rovers from extinction. Looking like drifting away from the pack under Paul Ince, the team needed someone like the mighty Sam to turn things around. Starting with a 3-0 victory over Stoke City, Sam has the project under way. There is no doubt that he will succeed and Blackburn Rovers will not go down. They will finish this season around the more comfortable side of mid-table. Next season, Sam will take them higher and they will flirt with Europe. ThatÂ’s what Sam does. The snag is, these days is that enough? The way the Premiership is going, clubs like Blackburn, Bolton, Wigan and Everton, plus a few others, will be left in the wake of the ever richer clubs with large bank balances and Super Managers drawn by the smell of success. Ultimately, Big Sam will win the battle but lose the war.