Sam Allardyce responds to fan survey – ‘I’d give myself an 11’

Sam Allardyce has received an apology from Everton's chairman, Bill Kenwright, over the club survey that asked supporters to rate his performance as manager on a scale of zero to 10.

The Everton manager blamed the club's director of marketing and communications, Richard Kenyon, for the PR debacle that has increased his problems and revealed Kenwright called him with a personal apology.

Season-ticket holders and club members were invited to rate Allardyce’s performance in a wide-ranging survey also issued last season, albeit not at a time when the club’s manager was coming in for fierce criticism from fans as Allardyce was at Swansea City last weekend.

Allardyce addressed the issue before a question was asked at a press conference on Thursday. “I am only answering this question once,” he began. “In fact I’m not even taking the question. The survey: the director of marketing and communications has clearly slipped up. Our department has not been asked what we think of the survey, even though it has been passed out before.

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“From my point of view and the football side point of view it was a big mistake. I think it has allowed you to write some beautiful headlines. Our director of marketing is not a great understander of football and how football works because he is into marketing. He must have thought it was the right thing to do but clearly everyone else hasn’t and even the chairman I spoke to last night.”

Asked if he had received an apology from Kenwright, Allardyce replied: “Off the chairman, yes. And don’t ask me how many marks I’d get out of 10 either.” That invited the inevitable follow-up question asking precisely that. “Piss off,” he added, laughing. “Eleven!”

Allardyce is seething over a survey that has exposed the leadership of the club to criticism but insists it has not diminished his desire to stay at Everton long term. “It hasn’t made any difference for me concerning my position at the club,” he said.

“If someone rings me up at the very highest level and says: ‘Sam, you’re not wanted any more’ then I’ll hold my hands up and say: ‘If that’s how you feel then fine.’ But I’d be extremely disappointed if that was the case. In fact I’d be much more disappointed than extremely.

“When a season has been completely disrupted unexpectedly it throws a club into turmoil and chaos and when I arrived it was chaos. We have managed to overcome that side of it and bring a level of training, performance and try to get better consistency – particularly away from home – which we haven’t achieved yet.” – Guardian service