Sam Allardyce confirms he will still be Everton manager next season
Everton fans called for Allardyce to leave after being unimpressed with the style of football
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Sam Allardyce has confirmed that he will be in charge of Everton next season despite growing pressure from supporters at Goodison Park.
The 63-year-old only took over from Ronald Koeman in November following a terrible start to the season and has led the Toffees into the top-half of the table since his appointment, but growing unrest from fans surrounding team’s style of play has seen pressure increase on the former England boss.
However, talking ahead of the team’s clash with Huddersfield this season, Allardyce insisted he had already started planning for the 2018/19 Premier League campaign.
He said: "We discussed plans for next season yesterday with [club owner] Farhad [Moshiri)]. We have some clarity moving forward now."
Allardyce was asked whether he would definitely be remaining on Merseyside and answered in a typically direct way: "Didn't I just say that? For clarification, yes."
Despite the calls from fans for Allardyce to lose his job following the conclusion of the season, he defended his record at Goodison and said he was content with his impact at the club following his appointment.
"You always want to strive to do better, but because we started my reign so well, we built up great expectation it might be even better," he said. "We've achieved a good way forward in the space of five months.
"It's been pretty satisfying. One always wants your team to do better, to win more, to achieve more but overall pretty satisfying."
Sections of Goodison Park have highly-condemned Allardyce’s style of play for being far too defensive in recent months. He was quick however to point out that whilst the Toffees have not been scoring all too many goals, they have still been getting results and even mentioned Atletico Madrid as a point of reference, rendering the calls slightly unjust.
"Entertainment is the [mastering] of defence in Europe - Simeone," he added. "Is that entertainment? He's called the master of defence. I'm called defensive and negative.
"We've not only achieved the goal (of staying up), we've played some extremely entertaining games."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments