Brady: fans undermined Allardyce

  • by Staff Writer
  • Saturday, 29th March 2014

West Ham United's vice-chairman Karren Brady has leapt to the defence of Sam Allardyce following the criticism he received after Wednesday night's win over Hull City.

Allardyce was heavily condemned by a section of the home crowd on Wednesday immediately after the match, which he reacted to by cupping his hand to his ear in defiance.

That led to further criticism of the manager, who some supporters claimed was out of touch, dismissive and arrogant.

However Brady, speaking via her weekly column for a tabloid newspaper insisted that the supporters were wrong - and that Allardyce had got it exactly right.

Brady, a self-confessed Arsenal fan wrote: "Sam had selected a team for a low-scoring match, knowing what to expect against Hull and could not have predicted he needed instead a team to play against 10 men.

"His actions on the pitch were prudent and, at this stage of the season, correct.

"There is no way I can accept my team being booed. It undermines them when, in particular, they are giving everything they have to make up for the bad time the club endured before Christmas.

"Big Sam is so upset he complains that he has never heard a winning team booed. While this might not be strictly true, I doubt you would get the same at Fulham or Sunderland if they had won."

Ms Brady - who is understood to have been awarded a £1.5million bonus last year for pushing through the move to the Olympic Stadium - is no stranger to critising the club's supporters.

Last April, the 44-year-old accused the club's fans of being economical with the truth regarding disabled season ticket price rises - an accusation that was proved to be without foundation.

And in November 2011 she was roundly criticised for claiming that the east end of London was once a "hotbed of racism" - before adding that Clyde Best used to be pelted with bananas, a claim later refuted by the player himself

Meanwhile in May of the same year, Ms Brady and her husband were involved in a fracas with travelling supporters. It was reported that her husband, Paul Peschisolido, had to be restrained when attempting to attack a West Ham fan.

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