Sam Allardyce has been in the England hot seat for one week now, which is probably just about long enough to grasp the magnitude of the task he has undertaken. Being the England gaffer is not termed "the most difficult job in the world" without reason.
What makes the post so onerous is fairly simple. England's players are mediocre by international standards, but the fans and the press refuse to admit it and demand them to be the best in the world. As it is, they are not even the best in the UK, currently below Wales in the Fifa rankings.
Sam has at least overcome his first hurdle, surviving his first press conference earlier this week without any major disasters, for which he can be thankful.
Considering the woes that have befallen a long list of predecessors, he was quite upbeat and dismissed suggestions that the England job was a poisoned chalice. "Not for me," he said. "I'm ardent. Tough enough. Bring it on lads."
He did admit that it was "the greatest challenge I ever had" and no one would dispute that.
His honeymoon with the media will last approximately one month, up to his first game when England travel to Slovakia for a World Cup qualifier on Sept 4. A positive result from that would give him some welcome breathing space.
Some would say Allardyce and England are a perfect match. After all, his main accomplishments have been to get the best out of squads with limited talent, most recently Sunderland. Or as the Mirror put it, "he's an expert at making rubbish teams less rubbish."
Sam's appointment has had at best a mixed reaction. A Mirror poll asking whether he would make a good England manager came up with a 54 percent approval, hardly a ringing endorsement.
Allardyce has long been criticised by fans and pundits alike for his alleged preference for the long ball style of play, although he vigorously denies that's how he likes football to be played.
Even in his successful stint at West Ham he received a lot of criticism. After West Ham earned a 0-0 draw against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge a couple of years ago, Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho called the Hammers' performance "football from the 19th century". But Mourinho will complain about anything if he doesn't win.
It was no secret that Allardyce had cherished the England job. Twice before he was in the running, after the removal of Sven-Goran Eriksson and then Fabio Capello. But the old "long ball" criticism kept surfacing and scuppered his chances amongst selectors who somehow envisaged an England side playing like Brazil or Spain.
Allardyce once commented wistfully on the apparent preference in England for foreign managers: "If my name were 'Alardicci', people would think I'm the best thing since sliced bread."
Big Sam always cuts a striking figure on the touchline, chewing gum, necktie usually askew and appearing generally harassed. One common observation is that he looks like the local butcher.
Allardyce once commented: "I can't help the way I look. I suppose some people will always think of me as a big ugly centre-half who doesn't know about the game's finer points."
But for all his tough appearance, he did admit in the past that he is just a touch vulnerable when it comes to watching his teams play.
"I love the football and all the build-up to the game, but I absolutely hate match days," he once said. "I wake up with a knot in my stomach and it never goes away until the final whistle."
One suspects he is speaking for many modern managers.
Like Sir Alex Ferguson, Allardyce is famed for his love of chewing gum and he is said to get through up to five packs a game. For the unbeliever, chewing gum is supposed to boost the brain's activity and increase alertness.
But the two managers had a very different style of chewing. While Ferguson would chew his gum slowly in small pieces, Allardyce tends to use big lumps and attacks the gum with some vigour. The Inside Football website described it as "looking like he is trying to eat a piece of toffee with someone else's false teeth".
Their tastes differed too. Fergie was said to prefer the extra-peppermint flavour, while Sam once admitted, "I like the fiery ones and the aniseed flavour -- but not the minty ones."
Of course he doesn't have Ferguson to contend with now, but Sam claimed a few years ago "I reckon I could out-chew Fergie."
It might surprise some to learn that after Fergie's last Premier League match which ended in a 5-5 draw against West Brom at the Hawthorns, a fan picked up the last piece of gum the manager had chewed and left on the touchline. It later appeared on an eBay charity website and fetched US$640,000.
Allardyce seems to have been around forever and in a way he has. His playing career as a "big centre-half" goes back to 1973 when he played the first of what was to be 198 games for Bolton Wanderers. He went on to play for eight clubs in all, before becoming Preston manager in 1992.
He has managed eight clubs with varying degrees of success. And of course he has never suffered relegation, which is quite a feat considering the state of some of the clubs.
It will be generally agreed that Sam has now taken on his most demanding job ever. We will have to wait and see if he has bitten off more than he can chew.