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Former West Ham United manager Sam Allardyce has wasted little time giving his own view of events after ex-AC Milan and Italy midfielder Massimo Ambrosini detailed his aborted move to the Premier League outfit last week.
The Hammers held talks with Ambrosini during the summer of 2013, when the then-36-year-old was leaving the Rossoneri on a free transfer.
His agent even confirmed negotiations with West Ham United, who were in the market for an experienced midfielder while Gary O’Neil was negotiating his departure to Queens Park Rangers.
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Speaking to FourFourTwo a few days ago, Ambrosini hit out at Sam Allardyce’s conduct during what he felt was a booze-fuelled meeting with more focus placed on the contents of the manager’s glass than his tactical plan at Upton Park.
In a curt response on the No Tippy Tappy Football podcast, though, Allardyce hit back.
Sam Allardyce reflects on Massimo Ambrosini’s aborted West Ham United transfer
The man who guided the Hammers to promotion in 2012 via a play-off final victory over Blackpool at Wembley insists that he doesn’t even recall that face-to-face meeting with the four-time Serie A and two-time Champions League winner.
And if Allardyce did indeed walk away from the table – as Ambrosini claimed – then there was likely a very good reason for that.
Photo by Claudio Villa/Getty Images
“I probably didn’t fancy him, that’s why I got up and left. I probably got the vibe…” Allardyce says.
“If you’re the coach, before any club signs a player, the manager should sit down with him for an hour or two. That doesn’t happen enough now.
“In all honesty, I can’t remember [meeting Ambrosini]. I can’t remember it, but I can’t remember a lot of stuff now. I think it’s pretty rude if I did do that, just getting up and going! Someone must have done something for me to go, something more important.”
Ambrosini, one of the most decorated midfielders of his generation, would end up joining Fiorentina instead. He hung up his boots just one year later, having played 30 times for La Viola.
Ambrosini had a less-impressive career on the international stage, though.
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Former Italy international gives his own take on Allardyce meeting
He was part of the Italy squad which lost to France in Euro 2000, and also failed to force his way into the 2006 World Cup-winning roster.
On a night when Tomas Soucek’s Czech Republic beat Mads Hermansen’s Denmark to secure a spot at the summer tournament, Ambrosini’s countrymen fell at the final hurdle for the third qualification campaign in succession.
Italy are the first ever former World champion to fail to qualify for three successive tournaments.
“I had lunch with Sam Allardyce, but he thought it was a better idea to talk about wine than to talk about football, and then to get up and leave me halfway through our meeting,” Ambrosini claimed in that interview a week ago
“I was a bit angry about how he decided to treat me, so I signed for Fiorentina.”
“I was happy, and totally convinced about going [to West Ham, but] if you go and meet the manager and he doesn’t talk to you about anything, just drinks wine, refuses to talk about football, and leaves you alone with another person, without even saying he’s happy you made the journey and would be glad if you joined…
“[Allardyce] got up and left us in the middle of the lunch, saying he had to go to another meeting.”
“I would have understood if he’d said, ‘I’m happy you came to London, we’ll talk tomorrow, I’m glad you’re joining’. That would have been normal. But none of that happened, so I asked his friend, ‘Where’s he going?’
“He told me to be calm, and I said, ‘No.’ And then I left.”
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