The Warm-Up: Sam Allardyce, Gareth Southgate, football's saddest 100% record and the Chilean miners

Updated 28/09/2016 at 08:22 GMT

Alex Chick reflects sadly on a Shakespearean tragedy; everyone else just wants to know if Sam Allardyce was really drinking a pint of wine.

Sam Allardyce in training

Image credit: Reuters

WEDNESDAY’S BIG STORIES

Bye-bye Big Sam

There is a moment during Sam Allardyce’s fateful meeting with undercover reporters when he emphasises just what makes him great value at £100,000-£150,000 for a day of Far East gladhanding.

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Keynote speaking, that’s what I’d be doing, keynote speaking. I’m a keynote speaker.

Well, you are now, Sam.

The man who waited a lifetime to become England manager has contrived to throw away his dream after just one match. The pinnacle of Allardyce’s professional career sabotaged by his own avarice.

It’s a tragedy of almost Shakespearean proportions - but an issue of far greater gravity continued to grip the nation even in the minutes after his dismissal, as this Twitter search at 19:55 last night shows.

Yes, fully 22 hours after the storm broke, the contents of Big Sam’s glass remained all anyone wanted to talk about.

For the record, and at the risk of party pooping, it was quite obviously pale lager (possibly Budweiser).

Like many people, the Warm-Up spent much of Tuesday trying to work out what exactly Big Sam was guilty of other than being a greedy prat... but as the day wore on it became increasingly clear that he was destined to spend eternity perched incongruously at the top of this list.

And then it was over. Allardyce’s chance to preside over a lacklustre last-16 World Cup exit nought but dust.

Spare a thought for the Chilean miners.

Just as Wales has become a unit of size for measuring rainforests, so one of the most uplifting news stories of our age is now little more than a point of comparison for things that didn't last very long.

Still, at least the whole managerial sleaze thing is over with. Right?

Go wild for Gareth Southgate!

The FA has been trying for some time to convince both itself and us that Gareth Southgate is England manager material, and now he has his chance in the next four matches:

Malta (H)
Slovenia (A)
Scotland (H)
Spain (H)

Put another way, the job is his. The first three World Cup qualifiers hold few fears, while Spain at Wembley spells just the sort of deceptive "prestige friendly" win against half-asleep opposition in which England specialise.

The FA’s bid to groom Southgate for the top job has effectively removed him from frontline management since 2009, so we can’t really remember what he’s like.

But look out, FA, because there’s a scandal brewing - Warm-Up sources claim the man enjoys “a few beers at the weekend to unwind”. (At 1:26)

Football happened last night, too

Leicester’s domestic form might have regressed to the norm, but they are tearing up Europe and beat Porto last night thanks to a fine goal finished by Islam Slimani.

Not as fine, though, as this from FC Copenhagen’s Thomas Delaney. Name like a Football Manager regen, foot like a traction engine.

Of course, the Champions League felt at times like an unnecessary backdrop to the unfolding Big Sam saga last night, never more so than in the super-awkward moment when Glenn Hoddle had to sit through this.

IN OTHER NEWS

Ever since Big Sam laughed in his face in 2013, Chico Flores has clearly harboured a burning resentment. Lying low, plotting, patiently waiting for the chance to get even.

And then this.

Good news for Eurosport! No way did we expect to be able to re-use this so soon...

DIRTY LAUNDRY

Never let it be said the Warm-Up has its finger anywhere but the pulse. To quote Nick Miller’s Big Sam take yesterday:

The Warm-Up isn’t exactly sure Allardyce has done anything enormously wrong here. Stupid, sure. Naive, absolutely. But wrong? Well, anything where he appears to use his position to earn some moolah is a little rum, and advising anyone they could ‘get round’ the rules put in place by his own employers is silly, but this is fairly PG-rated stuff. If anything, Allardyce should only be in trouble for being so heroically thick to take a meeting like this in the first place.

The thing is, though, Nick was right. It was certainly less than ideal behaviour, but as this Facebook post from the Times’ Oliver Kay put it, not only was there no smoking gun, there wasn’t a gun of any sort.

The scandal produced very little outcry from a public that was rightly or wrongly unsurprised that Allardyce would find himself in this sort of scrape, and which has grown numb to England-related embarrassment.

Had the FA felt this was worth brazening out, they could fairly easily have done so.

They didn’t, which rather makes you wonder why they appointed Allardyce in the first place.

IN THE CHANNELS

Jake Humphrey’s rapidly evolving take on the British press.

We’ve all got ourselves into a pickle on Twitter, but there probably comes a point where you just have to stop "rephrasing".

COMING UP

A million Sam Allardyce thinkpieces.

Also, real-life proper football in the shape of Arsenal v Basel and Celtic v Manchester City not featuring Yaya Toure and his "I love City" snood seen yesterday in training.

Get the full lowdown on Gareth Southgate's sensational sacking from Jack Lang in Thursday's Warm-Up