New Repubic of Ireland manager Martin O'Neill has dismissed Paolo Di Canio, his successor at Sunderland, as a "managerial charlatan". With the Black Cats embroiled in a fight against relegation, O'Neill was fired in March and replaced by the fiery Di Canio. The Italian immediately criticised the O'Neill regime, saying he had inherited a squad of unfit players. He went on to keep Sunderland in the top flight but was fired after a disastrous start to the current campaign, ending a turbulent reign which lasted just 13 matches. O'Neill is now back in football with the Republic and, asked about the man who replaced him at the Stadium of Light, he replied: "Paolo Di Canio? That managerial charlatan. "Paolo stepped in there and basically, as the weeks ran on, he ran out of excuses. I had a wry smile to myself. "I'm hoping that John O'Shea asks me at the dinner table to pass him the tomato sauce - I will dispose of it immediately! If I feel you can't win games without tomato sauce I will empty it on his plate - with the chips." "It was like a 27-year-old manager stepping in and the first thing you do is criticise the fitness of the team. If you've ever seen Aston Villa play, you'll see the one thing I pride myself on is teams being fit." Ketchup ban mocked O'Neill also ridiculed Di Canio's decision to ban ketchup from the Sunderland canteen. He said: "I'm hoping that, at some stage or other, John O'Shea (of Sunderland and the Republic of Ireland) asks me at the dinner table to pass him the tomato sauce - I will dispose of it immediately! "If I feel you can't win games without tomato sauce I will empty it on his plate, with the chips. "Paolo is Italian. John Robertson, my old assistant, once said that, if every team in Italy has pre-match pasta for their meals, how come three of them still get relegated each year? It's an interesting point, ability might come into it." O'Neill admitted that he remains disappointed about his firing by Sunderland and is sure he could have kept them up himself. "I'd have loved to have the opportunity to sign about 15 players like Paolo did," he said. "I never got that opportunity. "I think, really, although nothing is certain in football, that, given 20 years of reasonable success in the game, I would have accumulated the five points necessary from the last seven games to have stayed up. "So yes, I was disappointed, because it was a club that I grew up supporting as a boy."
O'Neil is a manager and man who I have a lot of time and respect for, but the fact remains that we were playing dreadful football and heading full speed into the Championship under his leadership. Maybe it was because he didn't have John Robertson as his number two? We will never know for sure..
Hypocrite O'Neill ........... you're just a hypocrite, shut your mouth and get on with your part time job
Would agree to an extent Think MON knew there was a lot of average in that team and wanted to slowly improve it with quality (Hence the Fletcher and Johnson signings) PDC did a lot of strange things that were probably unneeded such as the banning of things However MONs team was not fit and they were very undisciplined off the pitch
He had a couple of cock ups...but who hasnt yet...? Graham in terms of stats before us wasnt that bad, 12 goals in his first Swansea season?
No you wouldn't - we were down with flames on!. As per RAW - I have respect for the man and what he did in the game - but he had no footballing libido at Sudnerland (and without Robertson IMO) - Negative, boring football which worked occasionally wouldn't have kept us up. Go on your way Martin - you're an ex Sunderland manager talking about another ex Sunderland manager - neither of which were right for our club regardless of what people thought when you were brought in
agreed....he needs to shut up and get on with it now and let his football do the talking. There's a reason he wasn't given the budget to sign 15 players, and that's because Ellis didn't fully trust him to be the right man for the job...long-term
Is there a problem with managers we have released? Steve Bruce makes everything about Sunderland and now O'Neill doing the same. OK so you're asked the question - answer it and move on - don't go on about us. It must be a disease - anyone heard a Terry Butcher interview recently? Has he brought us up at all saying he was wrong to be sacked?
watching and listening to the post match interviews his demeanour towards the end of his reign was nothing short of moribund
I think MON and Bruce both have a problem still because they realise they had in their grasp a club that could go places if managed (and a little luck) right and they failed, nothing haunts us more than not realising potential so we should take their moaning as a good sign as they are gutted they could realise the potential we could achieve. If they left and said nothing I would be more gutted because that means it wasn't a special opportunity for them. That's just my take on it anyway.
I think they just try to deflect criticism away from their own ineptitude....gets on my tits to be honest. stop bleating and accept the fact you ****ed up your chance. although MONs criticism is more of DiCanio than us, there's a definite side-swipe. As for Butcher, he's too thick/honest to have tried that card. Christ, to think we employed him to manage us at one point. puts it all in perspective really. I like the way Gus just gets on with it, and that's the best footie I've seen us play, first half especially, against a top team for a long, long time. I get premier league games live on the cable tv here and whilst I couldn't understand the Finnish commentary the Mrs informed me that the commentator was praising our 'smooth, possession football' .....a lot....makes a nice change from the hoof ball out of the back.
MoN wouldn't know work ethic if it slapped him in the face. Say what you want about Paolo but you'll never ever put the same effort into football as Paolo does. Laugh at him all you want. You might still have a job here if you'd bothered. 4 days off O'Neil, See Martin, we all have faults that lead to our downfall.
One of the worst things about MONs time as manager were the transfers. His decisions to sell strikers like Campbell when we were short of strikers, bring in un-proven expensive striker as a replacement etc were appalling. Yes, Di Canio was allowed to bring in 15 players but how many of them were on a free transfer ? those 15 signings cost no more to SAFC than AJ, Fletcher and Graham.
When you think, 13.5m on Altidore and Giacc, 1m for Karlsson, 2m for Mavrias, Celutska and Ki will have a certain monthly fee then the frees will have had a decent agent fee and signing on fee PDC will have spent a similar amount imo
exactly, so MON cant complain that PDC was allowed to bring in more players than him, as they spent the same amount.
But in fairness to MON, 2/3 of his were quality players and he was trying to slowly build a team of players that were worth £7.5m at least each instead of some journeyman Whilst i do believe that in time Mavrias, Karlsson and Ba will become great players, we need good players now before we can start thinking about the future
Paddy O'Neill does come out with some right donkey shi*. thank the ****ing lord O'Neill got sack. one of our worst managers ever.
if some , no most ,of these people had to endure the most boring football i have ever seen week after week with oneil most of them would have slit their wrists ,it was dire ,it was dross ,it was predictable not only to us as fans but more so to any visiting teams , the only way we won any games was against ten men apart from norwich and we would still be trying to score , aplan b ,he didnt have a plan a.
