Di Canio, the Iron-yoked one-trick pony

Paolo Di Canio is no longer manager at Sunderland.  This must surely please most Mackem players and fans, as his thirteen-game shift produced more transfers than points won (nine from a possible 39).  His tenure ended with open popular revolt, with former captain Lee Cattermole allegedly speaking up for a free and united dressing room.

A victim of the second law of thermodynamics, Di Canio generated too much friction for his methods to be anything like sustainable.  His regular post-game player filleting was car-crash-interesting – and perhaps warranted – but ultimately meant his players sensed the division between manager and players; the blame was theirs, the credit his.  His refusal to temper his attitudes, perhaps the secret of his success as a player, was his undoing as a Premier League manager.

His story mimics that of Paul Ince, the former England captain out of his depth when he was signed from MK Dons to manage Blackburn Rovers.  Using genuine old-skool methods, Ince found himself bereft first of player confidence, and then of a job.  He only recently returned to as high as Championship standard.

The phrase “he doesn’t know when he’s beaten” is often used to compliment players.  It describes an individual of singular will who keeps throwing himself at challenges, hoping that brute force and redoubled effort will substitute for superior firepower.  In management, it’s a far less glittering reference.  The only tools a manager has are his tactical brain and communication skill; these must be refined and employed with tact in order to reach goals.  Much is made of Sir Alex Ferguson’s judicious use the hairdryer; however his best moments came not with bulging eyes and red cheeks but with backroom whispers, cod psychology and press-conference anecdotes.  The brightest days of Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho and Jupp Heynckes aren’t the product of shouts but of smiles.

It’s debatable whether Paolo Di Canio was ever able to relate to such a job-lot of Sunderland players, even if he had the inclination.  Had he sought to, the public dressing downs would have ceased – allowable in the lower profile Football League and taboo with myriad cameras focused on the Premiership.  Iron will became something of an iron yoke: he was a managerial one-trick pony; found out quickly and easily.

Short pitch: Sessegnon sale highlights new Sunderland

A fee has been agreed for the transfer of Sunderland forward Stephane Sessegnon to Qatari club Al Jaish.  The deal completes a hasty exit from the Stadium of Light for the Benin international, who has been probably the most influential Mackem of the past two seasons – the player was arrested for drink-driving only hours before the transaction was announced.

Questions must be raised about how and why the forward was sold, especially considering Paolo Di Canio’s strident desire to keep him; the fact that the deal was announced so quickly after the infraction only heightens suspicion that a deal was already in place.

After a second key forward swaps Northeast for Middle East in two years (and the third high-profile striker departs in three-plus years) the Black Cats now rely on new guy Jozy Altidore, the young Connor Wickham, a rehabilitating Steven Fletcher and the disappointing Ji Dong-Won.

With Sessegnon departs most of Martin O’Neill’s influence at Sunderland.  Though the move doesn’t seem to be of Di Canio’s design, his men are now obviously the centerpiece of the club’s new direction.  Owner Ellis Short seems to have bought in to Di Canio’s demanding and ultra-professional message and backed him by creating a lineup of hardened, regimented players – the only question now is about the talent level.  

2012-13 looms as something of a referendum comparing players of exuberant if sometimes wayward talent with those of unflinching professionalism.

Di Canio turns up the contrast at Sunderland

In appointing Paolo Di Canio as Sunderland manager, owner Ellis Short not only fell victim to the “Contrast Theory” but has actively embraced it. 

The theory is simple, and has its origins in time immemorial.  When replacing an underperforming manager, simply make your next selection his polar opposite: freewheelers replace tacticians.  Teachers replace “player’s coaches”; experience dismissed for youth that presages change e’er longed-for.

Completely and utterly uncontroversial is superseded by … Paolo Di Canio.

This contrast doesn’t get much more pronounced than this week’s changeover at the helm of the Black Cats.  Martin O’Neill – dear, staid, true, predictable and downtrodden Martin O’Neill – is gone, replaced by the fiery Di Canio.  For much of the season the Mackems have appeared short of ideas: O’Neill has been chief among the bewildered as his tried-and-tested methods shuffled his emotionless team towards relegation.

After an initial dead-cat bounce, the old coaching methods that O’Neill had employed with success over two decades with Wycombe, Leicester City, Celtic and Aston Villa proved ineffectual at Sunderland.  As his men became almost entirely inoffensive, O’Neill appeared a forlorn man adhering to tactics well past their sell-by date: defenders stop the ball, forwards shoot it and midfielders move the ball between the two as efficiently as possible. 

This theory still holds water – just, and if you squint – but, in practicality, is often exposed by the more fluid systems now en vogue throughout the EPL.

Di Canio is everything that Martin O’Neill was not.  He favours a remarkably fit team of young, hungry players.  Although he often played 4-4-2 at Swindon Town, he enjoyed the most success after shifting to an unorthodox formation.  He is flexible, young and hungry: three traits which hardly described O’Neill’s Wearside tenure.

He is also unflinchingly controversial, although references to his political beliefs may be somewhat overstated.

However, whether Di Canio’s furious affect will work in the Premiership is still up for debate - the spectacular fallout from another talent of the nineties, Paul Ince, after moving from League One to the top flight ended amidst a flurry of self-styled “Guv’nor” tactics which endeared him to neither his players, nor his employers.

Ellis Short has gambled that a controversial extrovert will be more effective in dodging relegation than persevering with a man who patently enjoyed only middling success.  O’Neill was an appointment tailored specifically to the situation in which Sunderland found themselves seventeen months past; Di Canio is a man chosen directly to address this predicament with this playing group.  How that dressing-shed cadre responds is now, quite literally, the £64 million question.