{"id":188438,"date":"2025-10-09T16:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T16:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/188438\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T16:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T16:27:10","slug":"i-told-sunderland-star-we-wasted-14m-on-him-but-he-had-the-perfect-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/188438\/","title":{"rendered":"I told Sunderland star we wasted \u00a314m on him, but he had the perfect response"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Black Cats boss Sam Allardyce has recalled a classic moment from his time at the Stadium of Light\"SunderlandFormer Sunderland boss Sam Allardyce(Image: Adam Davy\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Sam Allardyce has revealed he told a Sunderland player he was a waste of money while he was in charge of the club.<\/p>\n

The former Black Cats and England boss replaced Dick Advocaat in the 2015\/16 season and helped save Sunderland<\/a> from relegation.<\/p>\n

Allardyce pulled off a near impossible job at Sunderland as he orchestrated a 3-0 win against Everton on the penultimate day of the season to ensure the Black Cats retained their top-flight status at the expense of North East rivals Newcastle United<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The former manager left the Stadium of Light at the end of the season to become the boss of England, which proved to be the shortest tenure in the history of the national team.<\/p>\n

When speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast<\/a> via BOYLE Sports, Allardyce spoke of the time he told Sunderland\u2019s \u00a314m acquisition Wahbi Khazri that he was a waste of money.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ll tell you the story about that because I was getting a bit frustrated with him,\u201d said Allardyce <\/a>on the podcast. \u201cWe were in a difficult position.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is going into, I think, the last four games of the season, where we need to win at least two to stay up. We were doing a bit of training, and we were messing about. I said something like, I\u2019ve wasted \u00a314million on you. I mean, so anyway, that\u2019s not putting an arm around him, is it?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo anyway, we\u2019re playing the game, and let\u2019s face it, we won 3-2 and he scored a right-foot volley to get us back in the game at 1-1. And he come running over and said, \u2018Gaffer, do you think I\u2019m worth \u00a314million now?’.”<\/p>\n

Khazri arrived at the Stadium of Light from Bordeaux to help steer the club away from the relegation zone, but would only contribute two goals and one assist in 14 outings.<\/p>\n

\"SunderlandSunderland manager Sam Allardyce (left) with Wahbi Khazri on the touchline in 2016(Image: PA Wire)<\/p>\n

Turning his attentions to the modern-day side, Allardyce had praise for head coach Regis Le Bris,<\/a> calling him one of the Premier League\u2019s best managers. Allardyce ranked this season\u2019s Premier League bosses and put Le Bris in third place.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cI\u2019ve done this because I wanted to give a manager in the promoted three the credit they deserve. We\u2019ve experienced an embarrassing season for two seasons, with the teams that got promoted getting relegated straight away. It looks like Sunderland and the coach have looked at that and said, \u2018we\u2019re not going to be one of them\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s early days yet, but they look like a very comfortable outfit. They won\u2019t be in trouble if they continue like that.<\/p>\n

“It takes the pressure off, and it\u2019ll be a long time before they slip down to the bottom three, even if they have a bad spell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Black Cats boss Sam Allardyce has recalled a classic moment from his time at the Stadium of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,72813,101,2904,56,54,55,82927],"class_list":{"0":"post-188438","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-sam-allardyce","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-sunderland-afc","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom","15":"tag-wahbi-khazri"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}