Sam Allardyce has warned that the Premier League is in danger of becoming boring because teams have been “brainwashed” into using the same playing style.
The English top-flight has opened up to different tactical approaches over the last decade, with an influx of coaches coming from elsewhere in Europe.
However the West Brom manager fears coaches are being prevented from sticking to their preferred style and that the league is suffering as a result.
He said to Sky Sports: “What’s the point of playing out from the back against Man City and Liverpool, the best high-pressing team in this country. If they drop off, you play out from the back. Where’s the space? Exploit the space. I tried to get the players to think about that. It’s a simple game that’s been complicated far too much by too many people.
“Has the Premier League got tougher tactically? No. The big change is that everyone wants to play the same way. Everyone’s been brainwashed into, ‘You must play this way, you must…
“As a manager at 66, I really am glad I’m not in my 30s, with people telling me what I should do and how I should play. It’s detrimental to the world of football. It’ll become boring. The best league in the world should have different systems, different ways of playing.
“To press every young manager into the same way hinders the development of coaches for me; they’ll end up trying to do something because of the pressure and they’ll end up losing their job and they will be perfectly good coaches who might not get another chance in football to manage.
“We must let young coaches express themselves with the team and players they have and their capabilities. If they’ve got the capabilities to play out from the back all the time, great. If they haven’t, they will keep giving the ball away and the opposition will keep scoring. You have to find another way sometimes and if you don’t, you lose your job.”
Allardyce took charge of the Baggies in December but was unable to rescue them from relegation. The Hawthorns side sit second bottom of the Premier League and 12 points from safety with three games left to play.
West Brom host Liverpool on Sunday, which will be followed by a home game against West Ham on Wednesday. They will then take on Leeds at Elland Road in the last game of the season on May 23.
