England can’t afford to be snobbish, Sam Allardyce deserves to be manager

It took until after full-time, after England’s humiliating Euro 2016 defeat at the hands of Iceland, for Roy Hodgson to kick some sort of plan into action.

This was an exit plan, though. With the eulogies already describing the country’s worst footballing indignation since 1950, he quickly produced a statement from his sock to read to the assembled press in Nice. However, there was no plan for his successor.

Of course, Hodgson’s contract expired after the European Championships anyway. He resigned just three days before the end of his deal, forfeiting just £28,600 of his whopping £3.5 million contract.

But this was about symbolism and self-sacrifice. Never before has an England manager signed off so fittingly, with Hodgson shrugging “these things happen” before awkwardly shuffling off. It was a quintessentially English moment.

There was no obvious candidate to replace Hodgson in the aftermath of the tournament, with English football's dearth of top-tier talent on the pitch only usurped by the dearth of top-tier talent in the dugout. The next England manager? The way things were going three weeks ago it could have very well been Mike Bassett.

As it turns out that might not have been a completely ridiculous suggestion since English football is now turning to the closest thing it has to a real-life Mike Bassett. He is gruff, common, fond of a summertime rave on a Balearic island and is the best option out there right now.

That's right: it’s Sam Allardyce.

He’s been tipped for it before, most prominently back in 2006 following Sven Goran Eriksson’s departure. That time the FA opted for Steve McLaren instead - a decision that proved as fruitful as Hodgson’s call to use Wayne Rooney as a central midfielder this summer. Now the FA have finally accepted Allardyce is the best man for the job.

With the 61-year-old in charge, England would never have lost to Iceland. They might not have played with flair and flamboyance, there probably wouldn’t have been any flicks or tricks, but they wouldn’t have suffered their most embarrassing defeat in a generation. Just as he did at Sunderland, he would have ensured England avoided humiliation.

Some will say he is below the level befitting of an England manager. But was Hodgson’s standing in the game really that much above Allardyce’s when he received the call from Wembley? Others might sneer at how a Sunderland manager should never be considered for the biggest job in English football, but in the context of international football England are basically the Sunderland of the international game. For England's occasional failure to qualify for tournaments, read Sunderland's occasional relegation; for England's occasional forays into the last eight of tournaments, read Sunderland's occasional decent cup run or top-10 finish; and for England's sole day of World Cup glory in 1966, read Sunderland's glorious victory in the 1973 FA Cup final.

Some will claim his style of play wouldn’t work in international football. But a common thread has run all the way through this summer’s European Championships - the best-organised have performed the best. Iceland provide the perfect precedent, with Northern Ireland and Wales also underlining the importance of tactical education and co-ordination at a major tournament.

Hodgson never grasped that, but Allardyce will. It’s what he does best.

Of course, Allardyce isn’t the only candidate who can bring such qualities to the England team. Tony Pulis - a Welshman well-versed in the English game - is out of the same mould. He would have got them launching long throw-ins into the box, made them hard to beat, got them punching opponents in the showers. There are others, too: Rafael Benitez would also have brought bring a sense of organisation to the fold.

But Allardyce is the one who deserves it. He has bided his time, sticking it out longer than any other. His teams are derided for being simplistic, but England needs some of that simplicity. They called his Bolton Wanderers side a modern day Crazy Gang, as if comparing them with the greatest overachievers of their time was some sort of put-down. English football can’t afford to be so snobbish any longer.

Allardyce is among the best in making the most of what he has. At Sunderland he turned Jan Kirchhoff into a Wearside Sergio Busquets, Wahbi Khazri into a searing hot rod of a winger and wound back the clock on Jermain Defoe’s career by about 10 years. Imagine what he could do with the likes of Dele Alli and Marcus Rashford.

Hodgson’s tenure, a transitional stint that ended up spanning four years and three major tournaments, will go down as wasted time. Results were poor while there was little in the way of ideological progress too. The England team needed recalibration after Fabio Capello’s spell in charge, but it’s debatable whether Hodgson actually delivered that.

He never had the skill set to do that, though. The FA must stop hiring managers on what they want them to be and instead pick them on what they are. English football often talks about its need to find an identity for itself. Whether it likes it or not, Allardyce is that identity.