Former Sunderland manager Martin O'Neill deserves respect. Paolo Di Canio does not. Paolo Di Canio would have hated to manage himself as a player. He was the type of footballer Sunderlandâs former manager doesnât have any time for, even if he would have liked the work ethic and ridiculous amount of skill he certainly possessed. Di Canio was selfish. Too often it was all about him. Not the team. He walked out on Celtic after they offered him £12,000 a week, his biggest wage at that time of his career. Di Canioâs time in Scotland had been spectacular. He had some great games, but ultimately the club ended that season without a trophy. He was sent off twice, both for off-the-ball incidents, and went public with his so-called problem a day after the might of Falkirk had beaten his Celtic side in a semi-final. Then came Sheffield Wednesday and the Paul Alcock incident. Getting an 11-game suspension hardly helped his team there, did it? Di Canio constantly fell out with team-mates, on and off the pitch. His refusal to allow a young Frank Lampard to take a penalty was funny, but is that how a senior player acts? And he never, ever admitted he was in the wrong, despite it being obvious to everyone else that on so many occasions it was the Italian at fault. I canât imagine Di Canio the manager putting up with that. Could you describe him as a truly great player? Iâm not so sure. Brilliant to watch, of course, but he never won a cap and did nothing in European football. He won a single league title, with AC Milan in 1996, when he played 22 Serie A games, many as a substitute. Martin OâNeill won a European Cup and captained Northern Ireland in the 1982 World Cup. He also won a league under Brian Clough and played in several cup finals. As a manager, he is a legend at Leicester City and at Celtic, where he took the club to a European final in 2003. His ex-players love him, almost to a man. You never hear any of OâNeillâs former charges criticise him. Many still call him boss. I know out of these two who is deserving of more respect. OâNeill didnât do a good job at Sunderland. I felt then and still do that he deserved to be sacked. Di Canio helped to save the club from relegation, but was a disaster. The public spat last week was unedifying and also entertaining, however, OâNeill was well within his rights to criticise Di Canio for his comments regarding the state of the Sunderland he found. Calling Di Canio a âcharlatanâ seemed fine to me. But the bold Paolo couldnât allow that to rest. He said: âI respect the opinion of manager Martin OâNeill, but the fact that he spoke after six months, not straight away, that proves what kind of level he is. He is not very big. A charlatan is a manager who spends £40m to be a top-10 club and then sees the club sink into the relegation zone.â While regarding his time on Wearside, he added: âI was too good, my level was too high.â And to think itâs been suggested that he doesnât have a sense of humour. Di Canioâs comments on Friday were pathetic. If a 10-year-old acted so selfishly you would scold them. He is a child, so caught up in his own importance, he canât see that he utterly failed Sunderland. They may have stayed up anyway if Ellis Short had not acted as he did in April. But they also would not have been bottom with a single point if Di Canio had a clue about management. Di Canio speaks about working again in England and he probably will. There will be an owner out there stupid or desperate enough to give him a job. It will end badly and it will not be Di Canioâs fault. OâNeill, meanwhile, will probably be a good appointment for Ireland. I know which one is the charlatan and who is the big man. So does everyone else.
Not being disrespectful mate, but they're both in my past now. I base my opinions on Sunderland manager's on what they do for us, not Celtic or Forest. O'Neill almost took us down and I can't respect that. Di Canio may have taken is down. I'd rather concentrate on Poyet and the Stoke match so I'll leave this thread to those more interested.
That wasnt written by me btw http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/neil-cameron-paolo-di-canio-6312415 I happen to agree, mon was taking us down without doubt, but he is an safc fan at heart, he will always have my respect, it still pains me as he was the gaffer i had wanted for years. Pdc on the other hand can get ****ed, he'll end up at west ham Edit : i take that last opinion back, thinking of danny dyer on soccer am sat talking about west ham, 'i thought we would end up with pdc b4 he went to sunderland, nonched that up didnt he, wouldnt want him now'
Oh right. TBH, I never believed the stuff about MON being a Sunderland fan and certainly don't now. If he loves the club he shouldn't be making these comments in the press and having a 'wry smile' when it started going wrong for PDC ......... that's not my idea of having SAFC in your heart.
reading this i wouldnt have put your name to this post it smacks of somebody else , you surprise me that you have gone from supporting pdc to this damnation of him, cannot fathom it out ,after all this time has passed why anybody gives a toss who was the worst manager is a topic which will never be decided. the only constant is ellis fukced them both out the door
Not my writing mcclean, i maintained throughout his tenure i thought pdc had a big gob, both faliures in my eyes, 1 for not having his sidekick the other for being a gobshite
Time to look to the future with Gus,and forget our ex-managers.They are history regarding to SAFC and Gus Poyet and his team are the future!!
Do you not think that's a bit of a convenient excuse that people trip out mate? Other people manage without a sidekick and, if he can't do it he shouldn't have taken the job. He managed to sign Danny Graham and no sidekick in the world would've made him worth £5 million.
I'll always have allot of respect for MON. The day he was appointed I was over the moon. A true Sunderland fan with a good track record talking control. What could possibly go wrong??? Well for reasons I will never understand it did go wrong. Possibly it was the loss of his sidekick. Even the great Cloughie (Who also had much respect for MON the manager) was lost without Taylor. MON's recent comments have done him no favours but they are understandable. I think the sacking from SAFC really hurt him, precisely because he was a fan in his youth. Add to that PDC's constant attacks on squad fitness.... It's easy to see why he is so pissed off.
My mrs is away with work and i've got my two girls on my own since yesterday until thursday, i'm doing ok but not as good as when she's here mate
Why do people always claim that with so little evidence. Did you ever see him at a match cheering on the lads, like Steve Cram or Alex Rae? I bet he's never paid to go to a Sunderland match in his entire life.
He shouldn't have taken the job if he couldn't manage .......... Poyet isn't demanding a highly paid sidekick to do all the hard work.
its 100% true, not trawling google to prove it, its just true Charley Hurley was his fav player iirc, thats why he chose us as a kid
Cause he said so. Long before he was ever our manager. And he lived in Ireland!! I support England. I've never paid to see them play though.
He said his boyhood hero was Hurley and he looked out for Sunderland. When he came to England he never took the trouble to support the Lads. Smiling when it went wrong for PDC isn't being a true Sunderland supporter. When Mags claim they're supporters, but never actually go, they're shot tp pieces on here and ridiculed. O'Neill is no more a true Sunderland supporter than Keegan is a Mag.
