The Football Association’s response to Pep Guardiola’s representatives when he expressed interest in the England job four years ago always did seem perverse. But with each passing chapter in the car crash story of the England national football team, their disinclination even to meet him is enough to make you bang your head against the nearest brick wall.

Guardiola was 41 at the time, had decided to leave Barcelona and thought he could improve England. The governing body had decided to go with an Englishman, who would be Roy Hodgson.

Their staggering lack of curiosity is worth raising again today because the taped conversations between two undercover Daily Telegraph reporters and Sam Allardyce, first in a Mayfair hotel and then last week in Manchester’s Wings Restaurant, reveal how desperately the England team need the modernity and intelligence that such a manager would have brought.

Sam Allardyce England manager could face FA investigation

The job requires a 21st century leader and are instead stuck in the 1980s with an individual who has revealed himself to be an unreconstructed, avaricious braggart. What a desperate state of affairs.

The really difficult part of the conversation for Allardyce to explain away is his tacit approval of third party ownership which creates such gross potential for players to be manipulated that the Football Association and Uefa have banned it. “You can get around it,“ he boasts.

But it is his braggacicio – so excruciating that you want to cover your head with a restaurant table napkin in the way that Allardyce does during one of these meetings – which make him a laughing stock today, to the supreme and fatal detriment of the players who he will be asking to adhere to his commands in a week’s time.

"Keynote speaking, that's what I'd be doing, keynote speaking. I'm a keynote speaker," Allardyce tells the reporters, sensing that he’ll be trousering the £400,000 being talked about. “Doing meet and greets” is what Sam is all about, or so he says.

Sam Allardyce career in pictures Show all 21 1 /21 Sam Allardyce career in pictures Sam Allardyce career in pictures February 1989 Allardyce joins West Ham as a player-coach under Brian Talbot before leaving for Limerick as player-manager. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures January 1997 After stints at Preston North End and Blackpool, Allardyce took over at Notts County where he won the old Division Three title. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures October 1999 Allardyce remained with Notts County until mid-October 1999, when he left to take charge of Bolton Wanderers. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures October 1999 Allardyce returns to Botlon, whom he turned out for during his playing career, after Colin Todd's departure. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures May 2001 After suffering defeat in the 1999/2000 play-off final, Allardyce leads Bolton to the Premier League by winning the 2000/01 play-off final against Preston. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures May 2002 Allardyce keeps Bolton up on the final day of the season. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures February 2004 Bolton suffer a heartbreaking 2-1 defeat in the League Cup final by Middlesbrough. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures May 2005 Allardyce leads Bolton to a club-record sixth-place finish in the Premier League to qualify for the 2005/06 Uefa Cup. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures April 2007 After eight years with Botlon, Allardyce resigns with the club in fifth position, with a move to another Premier League club on the horizon. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures May 2007 After seeing a move to Manchester City collapse, Allardyce was named Newcastle manager as Mike Ashley completed his takeover of the club. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures January 2008 Allardyce lasts less than eight months as he is sacked after failing to beat Wigan and Derby. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures December 2008 Big Sam isn't out of the game long as he returns to management later that year to take charge of Blackburn Rovers. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures December 2010 Two years into his reign at Ewood Park, Allardyce is sacked following the takeover by Venky's Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures June 2011 Following West Ham's relegation in 2011, Allardyce is identified as the man who can get them back into the Premier League at the first attempt. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures May 2012 Allardyce wins the Championship play-off final for a second time to gain promotion to the top flight. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures May 2015 After West Ham fail to extend his contract, Allardyce says goodbye to the fans on the final day of the season. He's later replaced by Slaven Bilic. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures October 2015 Allardyce replaces Dick Advocaat at Sunderland with the Black Cats 19th in the table and his task to keep them in the Premier League. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures May 2016 Allardyce keeps Sunderland up with a game to spare, ultimately relegating their closest rivals and his former club Newcastle in the process. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures July 2016 Allardyce is named England manager on a two-year deal, claiming he has reached "the pinnacle" of English football. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures September 2016 Sam Allardyce resigns as England manager following an undercover investigation by The Telegraph that captured him advising fake Far East investors how to get around FA regulations. Getty Sam Allardyce career in pictures December 2016 Allardyce returns to football two months after his departure from England, replacing Alan Pardew as manager of Crystal Palace. Twitter/@CPFC

You didn’t need to have been there to appreciate that Allardyce – with whom the FA had just agreed £3m a year plus bonuses - and his agent Mark Curtis were like bees around the honey pot as the wine flowed in Mayfair. Curtis goes all fake casual as he tossed out six figure numbers, thinking that they might just stick. "I'd want a million pound but I mean you're not going to pay that," he says. And later: "You pay first class travel, and a hotel. And I would have thought, a hundred thousand pounds."

Subsequent to this, Curtis unilaterally decided the agreed fee had been £150,000. The money-grabbing is excruciating beyond words. Such is the company that the emblem of our national team keeps.

Our ‘keynote speaker’ Sam kills himself with his own words, too. There are his dull, cheap cracks about his predecessor ‘Woy’; his crashing indiscretion about the Duke of Cambridge not turning up for an FA event; and his analysis of another member of the Royal Family. “Harry’s the helicopter man. Harry’s a naughty boy. He’s a very naughty boy, very naughty. He shows his bottom and all sorts…” Please pass the table napkin again.

There is his willingness to offer open comment on Joe Hart, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Marcus Rashford to individuals in whose company he had been for less than an hour. And, perhaps as grim as anything, there is a disturbingly hazy grasp of detail. Gary Neville, he says, told Roy Hodgson about “when to bring Rushford on” One of his advisers corrects him: "Rashford.”

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When Hodgson left this summer, spitting fury and victimhood in a valedictory press conference which was a case study in humiliation, Allardyce appeared to represent a new, more decisive, less muddled form of management for the England team. That was briefly something to celebrate. But then – before he’d managed the team through 90 minutes - the moneymen knocked and he salivated and spewed out his not so imaginative secrets on England v Iceland to complete strangers, for all the world to see…

“So I'd have come in at half time and gone, right: bang bang bang bang bang. And then if that didn't work I'd have gone bang, substitute, substitute, know what I mean?”