FA on brink of naming Sam Allardyce as England's new manager

The Football Association are understood to have formally offered the job to the 61-year-old on an initial two-year contract.

Negotiations began with Sunderland yesterday morning over a financial settlement after the three-man panel set up to find Roy Hodgson’s successor told an FA board meeting that Allardyce was their unanimous choice.

Steve Bruce, a close friend of the soon-to-be-crowned Three Lions chief, was interviewed for the post, while others understood to have been in the frame included Eddie Howe and Jurgen Klinsmann.

Arsene Wenger had earlier given little hint as to whether he would be interested in a vacancy created by England’s woeful Euro 2016 performance.

News of Allardyce being the man wanted by England leaked out on Wednesday night, but it was not until yesterday that the selection panel – consisting of chief executive Martin Glenn, vice-chairman David Gill and technical director Dan Ashworth – presented their three-week findings to the FA board.

The meeting at Wembley represented Greg Dyke’s final day as FA chairman after three years and, although he was not involved in the head-hunting process, he indicated there would be unanimous support for Allarydce.

Speaking as he arrived at the national stadium, he said: “Clearly the three-man group are convinced he is the right man and I go along with that, yes.

“We appointed a three-man committee to go out and look at all the candidates, come back with a recommendation who they thought was the best man. They have taken that decision and obviously we will agree with them.

“I think you’d have to ask them, but as far as I understand it that’s the discussion.”

All that now stands between Allardyce and the role he first pitched for a decade ago, when he lost out to Steve McClaren, is the completion of personal terms and a compensation package for Sunderland.

Allardyce is unlikely to bring any of his Stadium of Light back-room team with him, having accepted a series of club appointees when he arrived last October.

That removed one possible stumbling block, while some of his favoured deputies such as Neil McDonald and Mark Taylor are available.

So, too is Teddy Sheringham, who worked as attacking coach under Allardyce at West Ham and would fit the FA’s desire to have a distinguished former international in the set-up.

All parties would prefer a swift resolution, with the new Premier League season on the horizon and England’s World Cup qualifying campaign beginning on September 4 with a trip to Slovakia.

Sunderland, however, have made clear their dissatisfaction with the process.

While they gave permission for the FA to speak to their manager, it was on the understanding that the process would be kept under wraps. Once England’s interest became public last week, the Wearside club were left in limbo.

Allardyce took charge of the Wearsiders for what should be the final time during a 3-0 friendly win over Hartlepool on Wednesday night, but did not re-emerge for the second half.

At the conclusion of the match, a club statement read: “Naturally we are aware of the intense media speculation. However at the present time, Sam Allardyce remains our manager.

“We share in the anger and frustration of our supporters and would like to assure them that we are working to conclude the matter in the best interests of Sunderland AFC.”

Hull had previously made public their own dissatisfaction with how public the process had become in the wake of it being confirmed Bruce had been interviewed over the weekend.

The FA board meeting, scheduled to begin at 10am, was in the diary long before Hodgson stepped down following the side’s Euro 2016 disappointment.

It is thought Allardyce has been offered an initial two-year deal, covering the 2018 World Cup campaign.

But Glenn is hoping for a longer partnership and intends to integrate Allardyce into the wider FA system, working alongside coaches of the national age-group sides from Under-16s up.

Speaking on Wednesday, Glenn defended the timing of the process. “It has been three weeks. Is three weeks a long period of time?” he said. “If we’d have done a knee-jerk and done it in three days, we’d have been rightly accused of knee-jerking.”

Former England manager Sven Goran Eriksson has backed Allardyce to succeed.

When the Swede left his post 10 years ago, Allardyce came second to Steve McClaren in the race to succeed him.

Eriksson said: “If you take a team from the lower part of the table you have to adapt to what you want to do. Many times Sam has had a team struggling for survival and he has done the job.”

Phil Brown says pal Sam ‘is the right man’: Page 22.