Simon Parker column

As job swaps go, it is surely a no brainer.

Sam Allardyce thinks he is worthy of managing the European super powers; Blackburn’s new owners want a boss who can deliver a top-five position and look good doing it.

The ultra-cool Pep Guardiola has laid down the blueprint for sexy, winning football with Barcelona. So why not try his hand in deepest Lancashire?

It sounds an utterly hair-brained scheme but would be nothing out of keeping with the public pronouncements from the Venky’s group since they took the Blackburn reins.

For football owners they sure know their chicken.

We all knew that Big Sam wouldn’t last five minutes once the Indians got their feet under the boardroom table.

I can only imagine what he thought about their laughable pay-off line that he is a “very nice and sweet man”.

Establishing Blackburn as a middle-range club in the Premier League is as good as it’s going to get. Suggestions they could break into the big boys’ cartel are just delusional.

Forget Jack Walker and winning the title in 1995. Those days went out with Shearer and Sutton; ancient history never to return.

For Rovers, like so many others below about seventh in the Premier League, the goal should remain the same every year. It’s about simply staying in the division; end of story.

Negative, maybe, but totally realistic.

I’m no fan of the Allardyce style of football – but then who is, apart from Kevin Davies?

It’s pragmatic in the extreme but also pretty effective. He works with the players at his disposal and gets as much out of them as he can.

Once you stop sniggering at his pompous comments about managing Inter Milan or Real Madrid, you realise he does also have a point.

“It’s not where I’m suited to,” he said about his time with Bolton and Blackburn, “it’s just where I’ve been for most of the time.”

Venky’s talk of having a different vision. I’m sure Allardyce had the same.

But you ain’t going to get there on chicken feed.