Blogs and Articles: Premier League 2021

Paulo Di Canio, sacked by Sunderland after 5 games of the Premier League season.

Di Canio must be hoping that his ill-fated move to Sunderland hasn't hampered his prospects as a manager.

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Di Cani-out... but for how long?



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It was all a bit inevitable in the end, wasn't it? With one point from five games and rooted rock bottom of the table, rumours of discontent were swirling around the Stadium of Light turning it into an all-the-more darker place. And then, at last the chop came; news broke on Sunday night that Paolo Di Canio had been sacked, just six months and 13 matches after he was hired to scare the squad into survival.

While the short-term ploy worked and the Sunderland players were drilled into a team capable of survival, this season's start has been woeful. A 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace and a 3-0 defeat to West Brom probably represented the nadir of Di Canio's reign, and the confrontation of fans after the latter was one of the straws that broke the camel's back. 

The other of course was the treatment of his players. Reports are emerging that Di Canio had the players adhere to some bizarre rules at the training ground and on match days. For instance, players were not allowed to interact with club staff on matchdays. Steven Fletcher was given a severe dressing down when he laughed with the physio during a massage.

We may think footballers are immune to some of the criticism they receive (for £50,000-a-week you could sit me in a room for eight hours a day and insult me until you were blue in the face and I'd be happy as Larry) but Di Canio's continued blaming of his squad for the poor performances was only going to be tolerated for so long. Di Canio is a man of strong convictions, and even though his ambitious 4-2-4 formation was clearly being overrun against teams with more in the middle he stuck to his guns and didn't change. When it failed to work, coupled with his criticism of the players, the end was surely nigh.

There is no doubt Di Canio is an extremely talented coach - he completed his coaching badges with top marks - but as a manager, his style needs tweaking. For inspiration, he needed only to take a look westwards towards Manchester where one of the world's greatest managers evolved his style over 27 years.

Even Sir Alex Ferguson, the raging hairdryer, recognised the need to change his autocratic approach to players sometimes and put an arm around their shoulder. The promising thing for Di Canio is if he is able to manage a team where every player is behind him and backs him, he remains an extremely promising coaching prospect.

Although, being Di Canio, no-one expects his managerial journey to be an easy one.

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Sam publishes regular feature and tips pieces for Howtobet4free. He has a blog, crackingjabulanis.blogspot.co.uk, and can be found on Twitter by following @Gaytski.

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