Sam Allardyce on Blackburn Rovers' season

You have been in charge of Blackburn for almost 18 months now. How proud are you of the progress you have made so far?

I probably won’t take all of that in until I am on the beach very shortly relaxing and reflecting.

It will take a bit of time to sink in where we finished and looking at the last eight games has really thrilled me.

We always said going into that period we wanted to be safe because it was our most difficult period of fixtures and I think it was four wins, three draws and just one defeat.

A magnificent end to the season.

To get a win away at Villa, after beating Arsenal, really put the icing on top of the cake for us.

It was a superb finish and hopefully will encourage everyone to come and watch us live and increase the attendances and make the place a vibrant place to come.

From our point of view it is about us getting better, not resting on our laurels and thinking we can take it easy.

If we do that we will end up getting kicked up the backside, we must try to improve in all areas.

I can’t remember us ever dropping into the bottom three.

Birmingham and Fulham have been talked about how well they are doing with the resources they have got and we are right in the middle.

Most football clubs though, if not all, will spend more money than us and that will make life difficult again next season.

Is this batch of young players here as good as anything you have had in your managerial career?

There is no doubt about that. I feel slightly fortunate I have inherited a few of these players.

Obviously Phil Jones, Grant Hanley, Junior Hoilett and Martin Olsson are the ones who were already here in the academy.

Amine Linganzi, Steven Nzonzi and Niko Kalinic are the ones we have bought and that group of players is looking extremely exciting for us.

It is a huge help for you as a manager. They will have that better bond together, they will fight that little bit more.

When you are brought up at a football club it always means an awful lot to you.

It is a nice blend of experienced players. We haven’t too many in the 30-plus bracket, which is major plus for a club like ours.

It is a huge success story for us.

We have six players at 21 or under this season, who we are going to try to develop into even better players than they already are.

Some have played huge parts and others have just had an early taste and hopefully they will all come back next year and do even better than they have this time.

That will make us that bit better and stronger.

Did you ever fear the sack? One national newspaper seemed to suggest it was on the cards.

No. It is not like I am a young manager who is still having to fight for his reputation and still having to fight to show he is a already a good manager.

That is already established as far as I am concerned.

I think if the club wants to sack me, they want to sack me, that is entirely up to them.

That was all nonsense at the time though by some journalists who don’t particularly like me.

So they thought they might be able to stir a little bit of something at the right point.

So the club might have been affected by it but certainly I wasn’t at the time.

I just think those things come and go. There is a period of time when, if things aren’t going well, you ask people behind you to be strong and not to weaken and I don’t think there was any problems that way behind the scenes.

There might have been one and two whispers sneaking out from one or two people who perhaps weren’t as satisfied with how we were doing.

But they didn’t particularly worry me. If they sack me, they sack me. I will get another job if I want one, so be it.

You sold Stephen Warnock, Roque Santa Cruz, Matt Derbyshire and Benni McCarthy. Do you feel justified in those sales?

We had to sell Roque and Stephen Warnock from the financial point of view to stabilise the football club.

We had to sell Matt Derbyshire because he wanted to go and it was a fabulous price.

We couldn’t have got a quarter of the money in this country for Matt Derbyshire that we got from Olympiakos and I think everybody forgets the Mokoenas, the Tugays and the Ooijers.

We didn’t get money for them but they were a massive loss for us.

They had become too old to continue at the level they needed to achieve for the Premier League.

Fantastic players for the club, particularly Tugay who was an absolute legend here, but he had come to the end of his life as a Premier League footballer.

Andre Ooijer wanted to go back to Holland, and Aaron had got a very good deal.

Lots of those big players we had, who had played an awful lot of games, had disappeared from Blackburn and look what we have replaced them with.

We have replaced them with inexperienced young players, which is pretty scary to be honest with you.

But as we have got to the end of the season, we have overcome losing those players.

I have to say I didn’t expect to do so well and for these youngsters to come through and shine as much as they did.

But they have and that encourages you to go on and try to be better.

You must remember when you are in my position you do it to win.

Not too long ago there was a lot of doom and gloom around the place. There were some jeers from the crowd and the team was on a disappointing run. Were you ever worried?

I don’t think the poor run was that poor. We only went nine games without a win and we drew five and lost four.

Draws are very important.

I remember saying to Lawsy at Burnley, if you can’t win make sure you don’t lose. That was always my policy.

The draw is critical in those runs when you are not winning.

We all know how massive wins are in the Premier League though and if you get back-to-back wins, you can shoot up five or six places.

The difference between 4th from bottom and 10th is about six points normally.

It might be a bit more this year but you are always going to go on runs like that at Blackburn Rovers, particularly when you are on a transitional period.

People have to be strong then. You can’t keep sacking managers and bringing another one in because you are never going to get any success that way.

Do you think people forget about how financially limited the club is because of the great tradition at Ewood Park?

Of course the history and tradition at Blackburn Rovers is very good. It is very young.

The 1995 Premier League success was a magnificent time for the football club and all the supporters remember where they were that day.

Whereas all the other clubs in the North West like your Burnleys and your Boltons have had success but it has been so long ago most of the supporters don’t remember it.

The good thing though is the club has been established in the Premier League for God knows how many years without Jack, who has been the greatest benefactor this club has ever had.

But when he passed away we have managed to sustain our Premier League position for 10 years now and I think that is very, very important for a club like ours.