ONE thing we have learned in the last 10 days, with the sacking of Bob Bradley at Swansea and the appointment of Sam Allardyce to replace Alan Pardew at Crystal Palace, is that experience is valued. It is what Bradley, apparently, despite 20-odd years of management, didn’t have, at least not when it comes to that mysterious entity we call the Premier League. And it’s what Allardyce, of course, has in spades.

Put a different way, and perhaps stretching the analogy, when your team run into trouble you turn to the “safe-pair-of-hands” type, who invariably tends to be older, British and with a long top-flight CV.

And this happens at the expense of the true innovators, the ones who, because they are young or because they are foreign, are seen as a gamble – but who, in reality, could bring something new and fresh and different. That’s the narrative anyway and it’s popular among the hipster types who lament the return of Big Sam and the departure of Uncle Bob. But in fact, it’s not necessarily accurate.

Relegation-threatened Sunderland did go for Allardyce when Dick Advocaat ran into trouble last year. But when Aston Villa needed to replace Tim Sherwood and Swansea Garry Monk, they opted for Remi Garde and Francesco Guidolin, two foreign guys with no top-flight experience. One, of course, tumbled down the table and got sacked, the other guided his team into 12th place.

The season before was also a mix. Yes, Alan Irvine was replaced by Tony Pulis at West Bromwich Albion and Neil Warnock by Pulis. But Advocaat came in for Gus Poyet at Sunderland and Chris Ramsey for Harry Redknapp at Queens Park Rangers, and neither of the new- comers had any Premier League experience.

So the idea of a magic pill in the form of a grizzled veteran isn’t quite as established as it appears. And maybe that’s encouraging, because perhaps it shows the popular narrative – whereby relegation is an unmitigated disaster akin to ploughing salt into the fields during biblical times, and must be avoided by any means necessary – is overstated. Yes, relegation is not pleasant. And because revenues are lower in the Championship, it means you have to cut costs. But the truth is clubs get parachute payments for this very reason. And most clubs, certainly among the ones likely to be battling relegation, have clauses whereby wages are cut if a team drop.

There’s a financial shock, sure, and the scary bit is that you don’t know if and when you are coming back to the top flight. In fact, we love to describe the Championship in terms of some kind of Dantean circle of hell but the truth is different. Of the last 15 sides to be relegated from the Premier League, five returned to the top flight within a year. Newcastle are likely to do the same this year.

It doesn’t look like a great percentage until you look at the relegated sides more closely. Do that and you’ll see the likes of Wolves, Bolton, Birmingham City, Reading and Blackpool, all clubs with dysfunctional ownerships which, in any case, were then sold soon after. And, obviously, once you have gone down, if you are looking for a quick sale, you are not likely to spend heavily to come back up.

More relevant is the fact that of the three clubs who won promotion last year, two did so with the manager who had taken them down the year before: Sean Dyche at Burnley and Steve Bruce at Hull (Bruce ended up leaving in the summer over unrelated matters). What this suggests is that if clubs feel that, results apart, they are on the right path, sticking with a manager you believe in is not necessarily a bad idea. Even if you do go down.

Because, frankly, what’s the alternative? An Allardyce or Pulis type may help avoid relegation, though usually with a hefty spend. And he will want to spend more in the summer. It’s been par for the course with Allardyce and was at the heart of why Pulis left Crystal Palace.

And what happens next? If he does well and gets a better offer from somewhere, he will be off, witness Allardyce leaving Sunderland for the England job. And if he does badly, you will want to sack him anyway, except it will be far more expensive than getting rid of a younger up-and-comer. The upshot of all this is that it creates a sort of stasis in the top flight. The only way British managers make it into the Premier League is by getting promoted from the Champ-ionship, or if they are John Carver/Mike Phelan types, long-time assistants who step up mainly because they are cheap.

Needless to say, things work a little differently elsewhere. Which doesn’t make it right, but rather only goes to show there is an alternative path and that sometimes it’s worth a gamble. The guy sitting atop the Premier League today, Antonio Conte, got his big break at Juventus after winning the second division with Siena. Could you imagine Manchester United hiring Dyche on the back of him winning the Championship last year? Of course you couldn’t.

What about Jurgen Klopp? Borussia Dortmund turned to him after six years at Mainz, during which he got them promoted to the top flight, then relegated and then failed to get them promoted again. Luis Enrique won a Treble in his first season and a Double in his second. What were his two previous jobs before joining Barca? A seventh-place finish with Roma and a ninth-place finish with Celta. That’s it.

The point is, the way we judge managers is far too tied up in reputation and perception and far too much motivated by fear. Allardyce, in many ways, is the epitome of this. Which is rather ironic when you consider what he was like as a young manager. Back in 1997, he took over mid-season at Notts County. They went 18 games without a win and were relegated. Yet the club stuck with him and some of his, for the time, innovative methods, such as the three-man defence. The following season, they had locked up promotion by March, winning the division by 19 points. Funny that today he represents the opposite of what he once was.