Sam Allardyce
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Allardyce admits he’s considered retiring

Everton boss Sam Allardyce has revealed that he has considered heading back into retirement following the 5-1 defeat against Arsenal last Saturday.

The Blues were taken apart by a ruthless Gunners side, who opened up a 4-0 lead in the first 37 minutes, with Henrikh Mkhitaryan being the main creative force on his home debut, bagging a total of three assists.

Speaking in an interview with the Guardian, Allardyce was asked whether he wished he had stayed retired:

“I think it always crosses your mind.

“I think it crosses your mind sometimes when you are a bit down but that doesn’t last very long. I need it [the hassle] because it keeps me alive.

“As Fergie said: ‘I’m getting too old to retire.’ A great statement that was. You see Arsène, you see Roy [Hodgson] doing so well so you keep going. The only thing that stopped me was health reasons really. The only way I stop is that or if I don’t keep my job.”

The 63-year-old came out of retirement to take charge of the Toffees following the sacking of Ronald Koeman. He had the initial new manager bounce which pulled the Blues out of the drop zone and into the top half of the table, but has seen that initial form drop in recent weeks, culminating in Saturday’s dismal defeat.

Despite initially calling his team’s performance as ‘crap’ in the wake of the defeat, Big Sam has said that on second viewing, his side were better than he initially thought:

“I was terrible on Saturday night.

“You don’t sleep. I don’t sleep much anyway but I watched the game on Sky initially, the 30-minute game, and I’ve seen it again since and it was actually a bit better than I thought on the night.

“The first 30 minutes were bad but you have to give a huge amount of credit to Arsenal’s movement and quality.

“We were playing a deep line and they found those spaces. We should have blocked them off more.

“You have to lift the lads, get moving and get them going again. The lads have been shown it again – they all get it sent to their iPhones and iPads – and now we have to put it to one side and look to the next challenge which is Palace.”