Is Sam Allardyce the right choice for the England national team?

The English national team has long been a bastion of disappointment, constantly failing to meet expectations despite an ever-lowering bar. While the Three Lions are “supposed” to be a dominant force in international football, the reality has been anything but for a long time now, putting immense pressure on every new manager who steps into the role to be the manager who turns things around.

Allardyce has been linked to the England job off and on for the last decade, during successes and failures alike for both England and Allardyce -- OK, mostly just failures for England. Regardless, seeing his name pop up on the list of candidates after Hodgson’s resignation was hardly shocking, because “Allardyce being considered for the England job” is pretty much a standard headline at this point whenever there’s an opening.

This time, though, Allardyce seems to be a serious candidate, with a very real chance of being hired. The question, then, is this: Will Sam Allardyce make England great again?

Well ... probably not.

That’s not to say that Allardyce is a terrible hire by any means. He’s a fine manager, with a solid grasp of tactics and a good ability to get the most out of his players. That often makes for a good international manager, and it’s definitely easy to see why many England fans are excited about the idea of Big Sam taking the reins of the Three Lions.

But the problem with England runs a lot deeper than any weaknesses at manager. Problems with coaching and development plague England and have for years, leading to uneven development paths for young players, and helping contribute to a wildly unbalanced base of English players to choose from by the time they reach the senior international level. Any positions on the field that require a higher degree of tactical know-how tend to be ones that the English national team is desperately short on, leading to some head-scratching and woefully ineffective lineups as whichever poor sap is managing the team tries to paper over the cracks.

Speaking of cracks in the roster, boy what cracks there are. While England’s squad is much younger on a whole than it was a few years ago, it has some massive holes in it. They have solid fullbacks, but their center back depth chart is a mess, relying heavily on Gary Cahill and Chris Smalling -- two players who will never be confused with elite defensive talent, and who were often shaky last season with their club sides. As for the midfielders who shield the back line, England has plenty of box-to-box runners, but it’s been a long, long, long time since England have had an actual, high-quality defensive midfielder.

And if Wayne Rooney is somehow your team’s most creative player -- man, you’ve got problems.

While Allardyce certainly has the managing chops to find success with just about any team, and he can almost certainly find better results for England than Roy Hodgson did. But don’t expect him to suddenly catapult them to major tournament glory -- England have a good squad, but not one capable of reaching that level yet. Allardyce can do well with what he has, but he’s not a magician, and he’s not a miracle worker.