Allardyce rules out Bolton return

After a turbulent year, Sam Allardyce is now back on the management merry-go-round and is now favourite to take over the vacant manager’s job at Everton.

However, recently, there have been rumours linking Allardyce with a possible future return to his old stomping ground at Bolton Wanderers. He has come out and quashed such talk saying he may consider a role “upstairs” at the club if one came about but he definitely would not take over the reins again.

Allardyce left Bolton in 2007 after a falling out with the then chairman, Phil Gartside. Ironically, ‘Big Sam’ still lives in the town and he has been linked with the role on a number of occasions in the past.

“Would I ever go back to Bolton? No, not as a manager,” he said in an interview with The Bolton News.

“Maybe one day, if they needed help, and they wanted to properly move forward, get back into the Premier League and re-invent themselves then I’d come in some capacity.”

He also said he wish his acrimonious departure never happened and he often has a lot of regret over the way in which he left which was shortly they were about to start their second season in European football.

“Even now, I will say it was still such a shame to have left the club under the circumstances I did. It was a very, very sad decision to make.”

It has been a tumultuous last year for Allardyce having been appointed England manager in the summer of last year and then sacked just 67 days later following newspaper allegations of financial wrongdoing.

He then came back to manage Crystal Palace in December 2016 and guided them to Premier League safety. It appears that Everton are to be the latest in a long line of clubs that Allardyce’s Midas touch for keeping teams in the top league works again.