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Sam Allardyce to have interview with FA for England job - reports

Sunderland's Sam Allardyce will be interviewed by the Football Association this week where he gets a chance to convince them that he is the right man to succeed Roy Hodgson as England manager, according to reports.

Allardyce, 61, is currently with his club in Austria for a preseason training tour. According to The Guardian and the Daily Mirror, he has been invited to meet with the FA after they identified him as the top English candidate, while United States' German manager Jurgen Klinsmann is reportedly one of the other options.

Following Hodgson's resignation after the Three Lions' shocking Euro 2016 round-of-16 exit at the hands of Iceland, the FA has moved swiftly to set up a three-man panel consisting of technical director Dan Ashworth, chief executive Martin Glenn and vice-chairman David Gill who have been tasked with selecting the man to take England forward.

The FA has also spoken to people within the sport at home, taking in feedback from former players such as Gary Lineker, Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand, along with advice from Harry Redknapp.

Allardyce's case has been helped by a glowing endorsement from Sir Alex Ferguson, and will now have the chance to secure the role he missed out on in 2006, when the FA interviewed him, only to appoint Steve McClaren instead.

"I wanted to do a real knock-your-socks-off interview for the FA, so I put together a PowerPoint which looked at every single detail," Allardyce wrote in his autobiography regarding his interview with the FA in 2006.

"There was nothing missing. Nobody but nobody was going to beat it. But then Brian Barwick, the chief executive, told me there were no PowerPoint facilities at the interview venue, so I had to print off hard copies for the panel. So much for the progressive FA."

The FA's initial plan of giving the job on an interim basis to Gareth Southgate, before hiring Arsene Wenger on a permanent basis when his Arsenal contract ends in 2017 was thrown out of the window, after the former informed them they he would prefer to continue managing the England U21 side for now.

Sunderland have been made aware of the FA's interest in Allardyce and it will now be down to whether the former Bolton Wanderers man can convince the panel that he is better suited for the role than Klinsmann.

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