A club without balls?

Paolo di Canio was hired as a man of steel... if only the club had shown some mettle




So I suppose now we know how fascism begins: they start by taking away the ketchup. I am talking, of course, about Paolo di Canio, sacked this week as head coach of Sunderland for a long list of offences, most of which can be filed under the sub-heading ‘Being Paolo di Canio’.

Under this sub-heading come specific misdemeanours, ranging from ‘not being sufficiently competent or experienced to manage a struggling Premier League side’ to ‘upsetting people by being an intolerant control freak’ and, fatally, ‘being generally unsympathetic to the emotional concerns of mediocre players earning salaries way beyond the merit of their talent’.

Having won only three of 13 games in charge of Sunderland and showing very little sign of improving the ratio, I suppose there was a case for replacing the Italian, as Sunderland’s owner Ellis Short did this week.

The problem is that Short appears to have whacked Di Canio not after a considered period of reflection or even perseverance but after a group of players mutinied, boo-hooing to the club’s chief executive about “brutal” and “vitriolic” criticism. I rather hope the club understand why there are not an awfully large number of excellent candidates lining up to take the job.

As you may recall, when Di Canio was appointed back in April there was the most godawful racket: a hysterical debate about whether “a fascist” should be in charge of an English football club, as though Di Canio was not just quite a severe man with some (private and/or disavowed) right-wing beliefs but a living expression of neo-fascist evil — Mussolini reincarnate, Uncle Jack from Breaking Bad, the very personification of the reason grandpa fought Hitler.

Of course, the point is Di Canio was hired specifically to stamp a bit of fascistic discipline on Sunderland. Some of the greatest managers in the history of football have been defined by their unpleasantly authoritarian approach to management: the ‘hairdryer’, let us say, is not the tool of the progressive liberal left.

Sunderland had decided that since the softly-softly approach of Martin O’Neill was about to catchee relegationy, it was time for something different. This was a shift in management styles, as a character from The Thick Of It once memorably said, “from touchy-feely to smashy-testes”.

And what the club desired, they got. Military discipline, atomic rollickings in public for underperforming players, strict and petty rules, a rigid hierarchy of precedence around the training ground.

It all seems to be summed up by Di Canio’s canteen rules: no coffee, no mobile phones, no Coca-Cola. Apparently, most galling to a group of well-paid athletes, the ketchup (typical sugar content 23 per cent, typical sodium content seven per cent) and mayonnaise (typical fat content 71 per cent) were taken away. In other words, this was six months in boot camp but not like when they go to Barbados on the X Factor.

It turns out that players today do not like being told what to do and told off in public when they don’t do it. At Sunderland they began very swiftly to bleat about the “sanctity of the dressing room” being violated by the televised tellings-off; then ran to the boss’s boss to demand that the nasty man was taken away.

What is wholly bemusing is that the players were given an audience. Chief executive Margaret Byrne and Short appear to have had an attack of the funk and sacked Di Canio for doing exactly what they had employed him to do in the first place. We can leap around and whistle ‘told you so’ as much as we like but it is no good for football when the monkey bites the organ grinder.

No one with an ounce of sense or pride can surely wish to touch the Sunderland job. The club have been through five managers in five years, with no apparent consistency in purpose or vision, and it is stocked with a group of hastily assembled and not enormously good players who have just been shown that they can effect regime change by yelping about their self-esteem.

On the other hand, I guess football is a business swelled by people with considerably less than an ounce of sense and an equal number who find that pride is easily swallowed in return for a nice, fat contract. I’m sure by the time you read this Sunderland will have appointed a new boss, who will be gone within 12 months.

Di Canio, meanwhile, stands alone and bewildered: the professional a******e sacked for being too a******e-ish. I mean, what’s a fella to do?

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/foo...y-the-club-had-shown-some-mettle-8840903.html

 

what a **** article

Assuming the reports on what happened are correct (even though there is no official word on it)

Its one thing instilling discipline into the club, its another where you single out players and humiliate them.

I wouldnt break my company rules, cos I know I would get in trouble. But i wouldnt expect my line manager to single me out in a team meeting and insult me. If he did, I'd be demanding a meeting with the site manager, and pointing out that my line manager is a twat and his management techniques are lacking.

 

A ****er of an article.

Di Canio is a ****ing headcase and I, for one, am well pleased he's been ****ed off.

 

The national press castigated our club relentlessly when we hired a fascist without consulting them first and continued to berate PDC and the club ever since. Now the moral equivalent to shafting your best mates grandmother on a live internet feed ( the British press) turn the tables when we sack him and have another pop at us for sacking him when they were filling column inches without any effort put in first.

Well, **** them and **** all the other pundits and know **** alls. This is our club and we don't give a **** anymore what you think say or more importantly write in your small minded, unintelligent good for **** all but arse wiping publications.

I hope that clarifys the situation somewhat.

 

Expect plenty more of these articles until the the club clarifies and moves on.

 

T think that Ellis acted expeditiously Can you imagine Christmas and we still have just a few points, the job of fixing the problems with just four months left is a big ask for anybody. At least the new manager whoever that maybe has some time to do the job

 

Often disagree with you Cest but not this time.
As far as I'm concerned the gutter snipe media are creating a siege mentality among Sunderland supporters and I'm one of them.

 

That`s probably about right.
When we move on so will the press.
They have to find something to write about and we were an easy target.
Something will happen at another club and they`ll all home in on that.

Suarez is back now so I doubt they`ll have long to wait.

 

I enjoyed the article. There you go.

 

I hope this comes true, because that is exactly the attitude that could drive us out of this trough we find ourselves in..

 

Spot on - all it needs is for Rooney to shag another cash orientated granny (allegedly of course) and these scum sucking molluscs will move onto another piece of rotten flesh to feed - they really are the pits

 

I am largely in agreement with the article.

Is this the same set of fans who, for years, have said that there are a bunch of ****ty and overpaid players taking the piss out of our club? Putting in nothing other than 15-17 place finishes, but expecting the 8th highest wage bill in the league to do so?

The club has long needed an attitude change. I completely agree that Paolo tried to do it too quickly, and too radically. The sad thing for me is that, out of 5 managers (Keane, Sbragia, Bruce, MON, PDC), he's the only one who's tried.

 

Di Canio's position was untenable, what else is there to add?