Sam Allardyce warns Tim Westwood: Don't do it!

SAM ALLARDYCE has warned Tottenham caretaker boss Tim Sherwood he would be crazy to go into football management.

LOVE-HATE JOB: Sam Allardyce warns Tim Sherwood of the pitfalls but admits it gets in your blood [GETTY]

“If you’re in a good job, why leave it to be a manager?”

Sam Allardyce

Sherwood was the club’s technical co-ordinator. He takes charge for the first time since Andre Villas-Boas was sacked on Monday when West Ham visit White Hart Lane tonight in the Capital One Cup.
But under-pressure Allardyce ­wonders why anyone would want to be a manager with the threat of the sack always hanging over you.

The Hammers boss said: “If you’re in a good job, why leave it to be a manager?

“You must be crazy leaving a job to go and be a manager because you could be one of the 50 or 60 out of 92 managers who end up with the sack. That’s what happens every year now.

“Fifty per cent or more generally get changed every year in the 92 professional clubs. You have to be pretty good to last.
“It’s a love-hate job. Sometimes you can sit in the chair and think, ‘Why the hell am I doing this?’ But if you’re in it, it’s because it’s what you do best.
“What else are you going to do? You can do Sky. That’s OK for a while.

“But once you’ve been in it and it gets in your blood, you pine for it. If you lose it, you pine to get back in it and do all the things you do on a day-to-day basis.
“I enjoy challenging myself. I wouldn’t be still here if I hadn’t ­taken those challenges by the scruff of the neck and improved every club I’ve been at.

PRESSURE: Tim Sherwood is filling the shoes of the sacked Andre Villas-Boas [GETTY]

“Tim Sherwood is a manager in the making. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that. What would probably surprise me is he hasn’t challenged himself sooner.
“He’s 44 and I thought he would have challenged himself a lot sooner in management terms. Obviously for him the right ­position hasn’t come up.

“For ex-players like him, and someone involved with Tottenham for quite a while, he’s got a desire, but the opportunity never arose where he was comfortable taking it.”
Spurs rejected an approach from Blackburn for Sherwood last October before turning to him to take over from Villas-Boas.

But Allardyce reckons Spurs will be eager to prove themselves against the Hammers because it was their fault Villas-Boas lost his job.
He said: “Do players get managers the sack? Yes. If you’re talking about Tottenham there will be a reaction on a ­professional level to the defeat against Liverpool.
“They are proud professionals. They’ll want to put it right.”