di canio

[Utah Owl]

8 hours ago, asteener1867 said:

Cantona was banned for 9 months....Di Canio 11 matches

Point was that Ferguson nursed his ego and protected the club's asset. Richards by his actions hung both Cantona and Wilson out to dry. He should have just refused to give an interview, but by speaking the way he did it completely undermined Wilson's authority. In the 18 months following the incident we went from a comfortable 12th to being relegated and losing 3 players worth 15 million for about 3 million in total. People say Wilson couldn't handle big ego's but Richards actions meant he never had any credibility from that point forward.

[Emerson Thome]

I have some sympathy with the view others have shared, that Di Canio wanted to leave already and to some extent engineered the transfer. Although the push on the ref was an instinctive thing, not pre-planned. But his attitude and going on strike afterwards was more calculating and helped to bring his transfer fee down.

 

But for me, an equal villain in this situation was Dave Richards, here's why....

 

1) The vindictive sacking of Big Ron after he had led us to safety the previous season. Big Ron knew how to handle players with egos and he had the club moving in the right direction. But Richards is a very small man, someone who doesn't like being challenged and who was jealous of having a popular, publicity-generating manager taking the attention away from him. He knew Wilson couldn't do as good a job as Big Ron, but he liked the idea of a puppet manager, plus saw the chance for good headlines about giving a young British manager a chance (even if that young manager had demonstrated his lack of talent at the top level by finishing 19th with Barnsley). For the same reason he refused to sack Wilson until far too late, as this meant bad headlines.

 

2) Richards clearly had his eyes on the Premier League job. Wednesday were just an opportunity to a life of swanky hotels, gorging on five-course dinners and frolicking about in fountains in the Middle East. The time around when Di Canio pushed Alcock the Premier League was in it's first (and now regular) cycle of hysteria about there being too many foreign players. By now these arguments are well-rehearsed and people role their eyes and ignore them. But back then this was a new thing. This was around the time Chelsea fielded the first all-foreign XI. Foreign players were jumped upon for their misdemeanours - I remember Bergkamp committing some violence around this time in a cup game for Arsenal and getting all kinds of criticism (whereas Shearer booted Neil Lennon in the head and it was largely ignored). The whole bad role model argument was played out in the press again and again. Richards saw this as an opportunity to gain column inches and raise his profile. He knew he was screwing over Wednesday, he just didn't care.

 

3) A Chairman who had the best interests of the club at heart would have gone on the offensive instead. Yes, Di Canio messed up and yes, he was always going to get a ban. However we might have had the ban reduced if Richards had made the point vocally (in the press, via Wilson, and behind closed doors) that both Batty and Petit had pushed refs in the 12 months before that and only received 1 or 3 match bans. It was just the refs they pushed weren't such wet wimps as Alcock and stayed on their feet. The Di Canio clip was played again and again afterwards, but mentioning both these incidents would have meant they got shown again and again - a current England international and one of the Champions best players.

 

Also, something happened in the tunnel after the same match between Patrick Vieira and a policeman. I was sat a few rows behind the Wednesday dugout, Vieira flicked a V-sign to us and a policeman saw this and tried to usher him down the tunnel by grabbing his arm. What happened next was obscured by the canvas tunnel, but it seemed likely that Vieira pushed, or maybe even swung for the policeman. The canvas hoarding was shaking for side to side and a crowd of people (stewards, other players...) gathered to see what was happening. Whatever did happen, Arsenal buried the story. There was a tiny article about South Yorkshire Police considering charges against Vieira in one of the paper, then nothing, as far as I'm aware. Richards again could have gone on the offensive here. Leak the full story to the press. Generate controversy. What's worse - pushing a ref or punching a copper? SYP might have been forced to press charges. The attention would be diverted from Di Canio onto Vieira. It would have made an enemy of David Dein (a powerful guy at the FA) and Wenger and co, and Richards would have had to take some flack from a few columnists, but it would have helped Di Canio. Probably reduced his ban, or at the very least he'd have seen the club was on his side by dragging Arsenal into the whole mess and by sticking up for him more in the aftermath. Instead, some of the solemn statements afterwards made it sound like he'd killed somebody. Richards hung Di Canio out to dry, and Di Canio, a proud man, was never going to accept that.

 

Leaving Richards, and going back to Di Canio:

 

None of us at the time knew what an unsavoury character Di Canio was off the pitch - his fascist leanings, etc. But on the pitch he was a natural entertainer and a guy who would cover twice the ground our other forwards did. He was by miles the best player Wednesday have had since the Francis era and the main difference between Wednesday being mid-table and being relegated. Someone it would have been worth taking the flack for, and if he did have his heart set on leaving we shouldn't have accepted a penny less than £6m for him. We were never going to replace him with £1.5m.

[fpowl]

On 01/07/2017 at 17:45, asteener1867 said:

Cantona served his sentence and came back to United

Its  ludicrous  and unfair to blame Wilson for DiCanios actions.

Could he have handled it better ?

probably 

Was it his fault?

Hardly

Wednesday were too big a club for Wilson 

Richards had a different agenda

True statements probably

 

 

As is 

 

 

You don't push a Fooki n ref over

 

I absaloutley do not Blame Wilson this is my point he was the scapegoat for a chairman putting his own ambitions before the club 

 

I don't condone di canio putting his hands on allprick but let's be right a change in the winds direction would have sent him down 

[Costello 77]

4 minutes ago, fpowl said:

I absaloutley do not Blame Wilson this is my point he was the scapegoat for a chairman putting his own ambitions before the club 

 

I don't condone di canio putting his hands on allprick but let's be right a change in the winds direction would have sent him down 

Di canio didn't care about his actions because he had nothing to lose.