Sam Allardyce sacked by Everton

Sam Allardyce has been sacked by Everton, the club has confirmed.

The former England manager signed an 18-month contract in November with Everton mired in a relegation dogfight following a disastrous start to the season.

After spending over £130million on new players last summer, Ronald Koeman was sacked following a 5-2 thrashing at the hands of Arsenal.

Everton were expected to appoint now former Watford boss Marco Silva, but turned to Allardyce after the Portuguese opted to remain at Vicarage Road.

Allardyce took over with Everton in 13th place following the caretaker reign of David Unsworth and, after spending a further £50m in January on the likes of Theo Walcott and Cenk Tosun, eventually led the Merseyside club to an eight-placed finish.

Despite comfortably accomplishing his primary target of avoiding relegation, the Goodison Park faithful failed to warm to Allardyce’s brand of football and made their feelings known during the final home game of the season, a 1-1 draw against Southampton.

Reacting to the news that Everton made several significant changes at board level earlier this week without consulting him, Allardyce said on Tuesday: ‘I’m shocked, disappointed and disgusted that the football club didn’t have the decency to tell me, my Director of Football and my staff about the changes.

‘They must have been in the pipeline for a considerable time but no-one thought to tell me and my staff.

I’m pretty disgusted.

‘I came into the football club with the team struggling and we have finished 8th in the table. I’m more than happy with what myself, my staff and the players have achieved from when I came in.’