It's difficult to believe that Sam Allardyce has left Crystal Palace.
The club and manager appeared to have found each other's perfect match, after the calamity of Alan Pardew's drop towards the relegation trap door and Allardyce's own fall as England manager. It looked like the right club, for the right manager, at the right time.
While his appointment initially lacked the bounce supposedly afforded to clubs making emergency managerial changes, the players and manager found the momentum to propel Palace to safety, albeit with a fight that went into the penultimate game of the season.