Former Wanderers wideman Matt Taylor has recalled an amusing conversation with Sam Allardyce.
Taylor joined the Whites from Portsmouth in 2008 and went on to make 139 appearances for the club during a three-and-a-half-year spell.
He later played under Allardyce at West Ham and was moved into a more central role at Upton Park.
Taylor explained how Big Sam handled what might have been a difficult situation in a way few managers could.
He told The Essential Football Podcast: “Sam was a brilliant one for me, he was fantastic. I remember him pulling me in the office one day and I said, ‘you want to see me gaffer?’
“He told me to sit down. I would have been 32 or 33 at the time and he said to me, ‘you run too much’. I told him that’s what I do but he said, ‘I’ve got to be honest with you, you can’t run that fast anymore’.
“He told me he was going to move me inside and play me on the left-hand side of a midfield three because I could get up and down the pitch all day long but my pace, because of my age, was going. I told him I never had any pace but he said, ‘you used to be quicker than this!’
“It’s just the way that he humanised the situation and didn’t tell me I was getting dropped. He just said we had better options and players who were better, but he could maybe utilise me in a different area.
“I remember it sticks out like a sore thumb. I went into his office and he was sat there with his feet on the table. He made that conversation so much easier than probably other managers would have.
“He was basically telling me, ‘I don’t think you’re good enough to play in the position I signed you for a year ago because you’re I don’t think you can run as fast’.
“But he did it in such a manger that I went out thinking I was a centre-midfielder now. It was just a bizarre but wonderful way to manage that situation.”
Taylor has been out of the game since he was sacked by League Two Walsall last year following an eight-month spell in the hot seat.
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