This is a follow-up to “Sam Allardyce’s guide to being England manager.” But this guide has been written by Big Sam himself. 

There are three certainties in life: Death, taxes, and England managers getting sacked for disgracing the nation. I knew that going into the job and I was smart enough to work the system so that I would go down as England’s only undefeated manager ever. Here’s how I did it…

Step 1: Challenge the press

This is vital. If they liked you enough to lead the campaign to get you the job in the first place, it could be difficult to get them to play a necessary part in your masterplan to go undefeated. So during my first press conference as England manager, I told them “I’m here because I’m tough enough to take it. So bring it on lads.” Thankfully, this was all that was necessary to get them to try and “destroy” me. Predictable gits.

Step 2: Win your first match

Again, this is a vital part of the plan. Adam Lallana’s goal at the death against Slovakia saved it from total ruin for me, but it doesn’t matter how you get the win so long as you get it.

Step 3: Get “caught” in a newspaper sting operation

This is the payoff for step one. Having accepted your challenge to “bring it on,” the press will try all kinds of sneaky tricks to try and bring you down. So when I was approached with a £400,000 deal to give advice on how to get around FA rules on player transfers, I knew it was a fake for three reasons: 1) No one would ever pay £400,000 for my advice. 2) The bloke introduced himself as “Sheikh Ian.” 3) He kept his iPhone pointed at me every time we met and claimed he was “just testing out Snapchat filters.”

The important part here is to make sure you say enough to get you in trouble without actually doing anything wrong. All you need is a reason to resign after 67 days. You don’t want a situation that will tarnish your legacy as England’s only undefeated manager.

Step 4: Resign

You’ll have to apologize for your actions and put out a statement expressing how “deeply disappointed” you are, but I’ve always lived my life by the motto that “Embarrassment is temporary and being a fucking legend is forever.” So sod it. You didn’t give the players the chance to betray you at a major tournament. You’re in the books as the best England manager of all time after just 67 days of work and no one can take that away. Plus you’ll still have time to find a Premier League job for the second half of the season. And they say Pep Guardiola is a tactical genius.

Read it and weep, losers.