By Mark Heys
September 9 2005

Bolton's Sam Allardyce would be the perfect replacement for Sven Goran Eriksson should the Swedish coach decide to leave his position as the England manager claims a number of people from the footballing world. Eriksson's position has been under the spotlight for the past few days following England's shock defeat to Northern Ireland in the mid-week World Cup qualifiers and the name of Allardyce is already being mentioned as a possible successor.

Football Agent Mark Curtis revealed that Allardyce has a strong desire to manage the Three Lions team having successfully taken Bolton from oblivion to the top six of the Premiership.

"Sam wants the job whenever Sven leaves - and the Bolton chairman (Phil Gartside)knows it." said Curtis.

Allardyce's former Bolton assistant Phil Brown also backed his old friend for the job if it became available. The Derby manager beleives that his former mentor will have no trouble in dealing with the top line players.

"There would be no better man to replace Eriksson. Sam would have no problems dropping big-name players." said Brown

"He has proved he can handle the superstars. He has worked with some of the best at Bolton, like Jay-Jay Okocha, Fernando Hierro and Ivan Campo. He has left them all out at some time.

"Sam was always ahead of his time. He was using technology long before other managers and could give you the lowdown on every team in the league and every individual player"

Of course nothing is certain regarding the future of Eriksson but it is expected that the former Lazio manager will be in charge for the next two World Cup qualifiers in October. Should he fail in those two matches then the Football Association may well look elsewhere.