In the wake of Paolo Di
Canio’s departure from Sunderland, it has emerged some of the senior players
complained to the Chief Executive about many of his methods. In particular they were unhappy with the way
he had talked to them after the defeat to West Brom last weekend.
Di Canio had been at
Sunderland for barely six months yet had received criticism for increasing
workload at training and criticising his players in public. Basically, he tried to cross a line long
since rubbed out from modern football.
To publicly question a player’s ability will get you, not the player,
the sack.
But the Sunderland board
has committed the cardinal sin of management.
Never undermine the management structure within your organisation. Anyone who has managed in any walk of life
should know if you undermine your manager then this sends a message to those
you manage that yours is an organisation where management can be criticised and
not respected.
Paolo Di Canio is
undoubtedly a complex and intense character which doesn’t naturally lend itself
to the ‘arm around the shoulder’ style of management which is needed these days
where players are king.
As Robbie Savage recently
admitted, the modern player has many tricks in which to get his own way or try
and force a move away. Seems odd a
player of Savage’s limited ability would need to encourage a club to let him
go, but his list of tricks was very revealing and so was his belief there wasn’t
anything really wrong with it.
The irony is that it
looked in the summer as if clubs had learned to not just bow down to contracted
players as Wayne Rooney, Luis Suarez and Gareth Bale looked as if they wouldn’t
be allowed to make the moves they wanted.
In the end, despite their Chairman’s protestations, Bale did actually
have a price Spurs were going to accept, but Rooney and Suarez had to stay put. But just when it looked as if clubs were
prepared to wrestle back some power, Sunderland has decided they couldn’t
possibly upset their precious commodity and their manager could be replaced any
day.
So can you manage by fear
these days? Alex Ferguson did. There are various stories of his dislike for
certain players which resulted in them being shipped out. The phrase ‘the hairdryer treatment’ was
coined based on his legendary dressing down of players during team-talks. Bigger clubs manage by fear as the player has
a fear of being dropped or not making it at the club. That is unless the player thinks there is
demand for him elsewhere. So is that
really a deterrent anymore?
Di Canio’s former
Chairman at Swindon described his style as ‘management by hand-grenade’, and
there seems little doubt the Italian likes to test his players and push them to
improve. But did they respond? Did they have to? Players such as Wes Brown and John O’Shea are
likely to be attractive to other Premiership clubs should Sunderland face
relegation, so why should they care what happens to the club?
When Di Canio was at West
Ham his manager, Harry Redknapp, would wax lyrical about how his firebrand
striker was always the last to leave the training ground, continually working
on his game. He clearly expected the
same level of commitment from his players.
There is no doubt he had a strong work-ethic but did he find it
difficult to deal with players who weren’t as driven as him? As a player he had the ability to switch off
during matches and then immediately switch on again to produce moments of
magic. Not every player is capable of
that. Di Canio seems to thrive on chaos
so much that he seems to create most of it, yet others are different. Did he have the capacity to understand
that? There’s no doubt he is driven,
there’s little doubt he wanted the best for Sunderland as he was desperate to
manage in the Premier League, but in the end it seems he’s just too late as his
style of management would’ve been more suited to 70’s, 80’s or even 90’s.
There have been many
managers down the years who have ruled by fear.
Brian Clough is the classic example, and ended up surrounding himself
with players who would do anything he asked or told them to. Did they all like him? Doubt it very much. There’s a story of the night before their
European Cup Final in 1979 and Clough has them all up drinking the night
before. Clough was a big believer in
drink settling the nerves. Archie
Gemmill wanted to go to bed early and Clough, in front of everyone, embarrassed
his star midfielder into staying by insisting they all do things together. One thing Clough was very good at was
building a team spirit. Other managers
have been able to do that more than anything, and Di Canio’s predecessor Martin
O’Neill was certainly one. It has been
suggested Di Canio kept putting O’Neill down which lead to some of the players
becoming unhappy with his methods. He
may have done better to have learned a thing or two from the Irishman.
But that last point is
one of several which make me very uncomfortable about this whole business. If the players thought that much of O’Neill
and would ‘walk through walls for him’ why didn’t they? It was their performance which got him the
sack, had they been prepared to die for the cause then maybe he’d be in
employment. You occasionally hear a
player admit it is up to them to get results, but nowadays it’s the players who
call the tune, along with their agent who has the club by the short and
curlies. As far as I can see Di Canio
was trying to do two things. Raise the
profile of the First Team as something to aspire to and be proud to be in, and
secondly push his players to become the best they could possibly be. Yeah sure, he may have different methods to
other managers but so has Jose Mourinho, so has Marcelo Bielsa.
Di Canio was so
determined to build up the profile of the First Team he decreed no academy
player could use the gym if one of the First Team players was in there. If they had to wait till late afternoon, then
so be it. He clearly wanted to make the
First Team the Holy Grail and something you should sacrifice everything to get
into and once there, you’d do anything to stay.
But these are laudable aims and maybe his delivery needed some work, yet
he wasn’t given that time. Where clubs
spend nearly all their turnover on wages and will even pay a player’s agent
when all he does is negotiate a contract extension, then you realise they’re
pretty indispensable. Brown and O’Shea
were considered surplus to requirements at Old Trafford and must’ve experienced
to wrath of Alex Ferguson, yet did they go whingeing to the Chairman to demand
his removal?
Sam Wallace of The
Independent claimed “he (Di Canio) tried to build the kind of austere, highly
regimented football set-up that would be familiar to Italian players of his
generation and is completely alien to the modern Premier League
footballer”. But most of these
Sunderland players are foreign anyway, as only about 6 of the squad of 25 are
English. The behaviour of the board is
something which must be open to scrutiny.
Half of the squad were part of the team dangerously close to relegation
last season that it was considered necessary to get rid of Martin O’Neill. Di Canio was selected by the board as the man
who could save them, and save them he did.
So sure of his ability was the board that they sanctioned the employment
of 14 new players for this season. 5
games in the players have complained and the board have caved in. So what message does that send to Di Canio’s
successor?
The message is, don’t
upset the players as it’ll cost you your job.
Don’t push them too hard or tell them they’re not playing well otherwise
you’ll be picking up your P45.
But even great managers don’t
get on with everybody. Trevor Francis
never gave the impression of really liking Brian Clough and Teddy Sheringham
certainly didn’t understand him. Not
every player Bill Shankly managed thought he was the business and even
mild-mannered Bob Paisley was at odds with some players. Listen to David Fairclough, and although he
doesn’t mention Paisley by name, he says he felt ‘the club’ never gave him a
fair crack. The key is the board backing
their man to deliver.
In any other industry in
the UK employment law has moved to defend the employee and ensure no one
receives the sack when they weren’t expecting it. You should never be surprised you got the
push, as you should only receive a sacking on the spot for breach of contract
or company rules. A difference of
opinion or breakdown in trust or respect is then managed over a period of time
and a review is set to look at the situation again giving it time to be
corrected. If this was the last straw
for Paolo it seems odd that the previous straw came much into the season, which
then puts into question why the board would sanction the new arrivals if their
manager was under review. What you would
expect to have happened when the players went crying to the Chairman was for
them to be told to get back on with their job.
Focus should’ve switched to their own performances as to whether they
believed they were giving their best for the club. Then the manager should be summoned for a
meeting where the Chairman explains what’s just happened and discusses how Di
Canio will put things right. He should
be left in no uncertain terms that this should not happen again, but under no
circumstances should the players ever believe they can switch things around
just cos they fancy it. Unless the
management structure is maintained and intact then the club will find it very
difficult to come down on the players at a later date. If the next manager comes in and the players
don’t like him then unless the board backs the players, they are likely to find
they’re unable to motivate them either.
Whoever the new man is he will have to manage a squad of players he
didn’t choose and have no money and no transfer window to be able to change
anything.
Now you could argue
Blackburn should’ve done something about Steve Kean long before he walked but
they waited till the club was relegated and even then it was he who jumped
ship. Sunderland’s Chairman talked of a
need to ‘act fast otherwise they could be cast adrift at the bottom of the
table’. What, after 5 matches?
Interestingly, ,many
Sunderland supporters have declared their surprise at the sacking as the
manager still had some kudos from masterminding a win over Newcastle. One hopes the board truly understands what
this means to a Mackam.
Di Canio is alleged to
have told the players if they want to complain to the board then he would lose
his job, although it seems more likely he was illustrating this as an option
open to a player who doesn’t really want to improve and he could get Di Canio sacked
but then the player would still be a player who isn’t playing very well, and so
what had they really achieved? Di Canio
could well have been under some sort of review, but that is not the story being
put out by the board.
But as I said, the days
of players respecting their position seems to have changed. It is likely that players such as Steven
Gerrard and Jamie Carragher are the last of the generations who would talk
about the pride they had in cleaning the boots of First Team players and how
they were in awe of them. It seems
managers have to manage players much like modern parents feel they have to
bring up their children, by a process of negotiation. But as with children, how can you negotiate
with someone who doesn’t understand reason or the big picture? How can you negotiate with someone who is
constantly told how good they are, beyond any semblance of reality to the point
they will not accept anything other than a First Team place? Di Canio may end up as one of a long line of
great players who never made it in management.
It is ironic that the only member of England’s 1966 World Cup winning
side who ever gained any success in management, was the least talented player –
Jack Charlton.
One last point I’d like
to make is about the press coverage of the Di Canio incident. There are two aspects, which I believe to be
completely irrelevant to the whole argument, which creep into many
correspondents’ views. Firstly, that Di
Canio has fascist views and the other is the Chief Executive of Sunderland is a
woman. If you read back many articles
you eventually see one or both of these aspects highlighted as if it justifies
the actions taken, or maybe fuels the authors own prejudice. It’s a subject for another article but you
can also level that criticism at the coverage of the Blackburn owners as a
female is involved in those decisions too.
One thing is certain,
though, Paolo Di Canio will always make headlines and polar opinion. Time will tell whether this has been the best
outcome for the club, but the players should be under severe scrutiny as
supporters will have every right to expect a vast improvement in their
performance if it really was the Italian who was holding them back.
