PHIL Brown reckons Sam Allardyce must launch a charm offensive on the Premier League’s top bosses if he is to be an instant success with England.

After years of taking on the big boys with Wanderers, Blackburn, Newcastle and Sunderland, Big Sam has to quickly get on the same page at the elite clubs, according to his former right-hand man.

Brown has backed Allardyce to handle the transition from club to international management but believes his old mate must be diplomatic if he intends to get co-operation from the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea.

“At Bolton, Newcastle, West Ham or Sunderland the players were playing for him, the difference this time is that he is only borrowing them,” he told The Bolton News. “Of course man-management is important within the squad but I think managing the managers in the Premier League will be just as important.

“There are some huge names around now – Antonio Conte, Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho – and they all know who Sam Allardyce is. They need to know he can be trusted with their players, their needs will be catered for and that they will be returned safe and sound.

“Gaining their trust will be vitally important. But this is the platform Sam has wanted his whole career and I’m made up for him that he got there.”

Brown thinks Allardyce will relish the challenge of picking up the national team after a dire European Championships and proving why the Football Association were wrong to overlook him in 2006, while he was still in charge at Bolton.

“You only have to look at what happened this summer and see how fine the margins between success and failure really are,” he said. “Roy Hodgson fell on his sword and it appeared to come down to one game.

“He’d won 10 out of 10 in the qualifiers. If he’d won against Iceland who knows what might have happened. But one man’s downfall is another man’s gain.

“I was worried that the FA were going to go down the foreign route. That would have been a massive shame.

“It is a difficult job but I honestly don’t think there is a better candidate than Sam. He must have thought his chance had gone after what happened the last time.

“He’d made every effort to get that job and I know how disappointed he was not to get it. I was disappointed for him too because there was a fair chance I’d be assisting him.

“It is the pinnacle of any English manager’s career. I am a Sunderland fan at heart and speaking with my supporter’s hat on it is probably the only job that I would forgive him walking out on the club for.

“He has got the experience, he has seen all the highs and lows that management can offer so I think this is the right time for him to show what he can do.”

Ever since his Bolton days Allardyce has had to contend with the style critics, who have also rounded since news of his interview for the England job broke last week.

He may not have won a major trophy, nor managed in the Champions League, but Southend United boss Brown believes his accomplishments with Wanderers have been overlooked by everyone outside the town.

“To have taken a parochial Lancashire club as far as we did deserves respect,” he said. “Unfortunately, outside the walls of the town, people don’t quite know how far things evolved and what went into it.

“When I turned up as a player we were down in the old Second Division, when I left to pursue my own managerial career we were up in Europe. Sam understood why I left, unfortunately Phil Gartside never managed to… but that’s a different story.

“Sam attracted players with a worldwide reputation – Ivan Campo, Jay Jay Okocha, Youri Djorkaeff, Stelios Giannakopoulos, Fernando Hierro, Nicolas Anelka – and got results because he knew how to blend the team.

“No-one liked playing against us. That is a requirement of any manager, to get an organised team, a platform, and then get the more naturally-gifted players to do the business at the other end.

“The one thing we lacked was an out and out goal-scorer. And I remember going to Derby County and phoning Sam when he signed Anelka and saying ‘well done, that’s the icing on the cake.’

“A few months later they sold him for £7million profit but I don’t think had Sam been around it would have happened. He would have been planning to win trophies or go further in Europe.

“People in Bolton know what a great job Sam Allardyce did and they will no doubt have been leading the cheering for him to get the job.

“I’m sure there will be plenty of managers queueing up to say congratulations but I’ll pick my moment and then give him a ring. I’m very happy for him.”