Paolo Di Canio’s time on Wearside was full of the twists and turns that everyone had predicted.  He was brought in as the particularly surprising replacement to Martin O’Neill earlier this year; he soon however won over the majority of the fans with his hard working ethic, his promise of attacking football and pure passion. 

His first job as head coach of Sunderland was to keep us from being relegated, one which he achieved and he himself described as a ‘miracle’. With a fantastic win over Newcastle and a convincing three points at home to Everton, Paolo soon became a hero amongst fans and the future with him in charge looked bright.

During the summer we all eagerly awaited Di Canio’s changes as Roberto Di Fanti was brought into the club as the Director of Football to oversee transfers and help achieve Paolo’s ‘vision’. It is fairly safe to say, it was an exciting summer for us with Sunderland bringing in a whole host of new players including young promising talent, as well as experienced internationals.

Predictably our star player Simon Mignolet left early in the window, but his transfer money was soon used up on a number of new players. Paolo’s preseason went very well with him winning the large majority of his games including an impressive 3-1 victory over Spurs. But then, the season began…

When that exciting first day came at home to Fulham our beloved Paolo let us down. Although Sunderland played some great football and dominated the entire game, Fulham scored the winner with their only shot on goal from a corner. Never the less, our false start to the season did not worry us, especially after being unlucky with the result.

Onto the next one, which was Southampton away. Sunderland started well with new signing Giaccherini scoring an early goal. However Southampton were largely dominant for most of the game and their late equaliser eventually came.  A cup game against MK Dons followed in which Sunderland were awful. A slightly weakened Sunderland side was ripped apart and soon found themselves 2-0 down with 15 minutes left remaining. Then Paolo’s magic started. He was screaming on the edge of his area at the players and unbelievably, not only did we manage to pull it back to a draw, we went on to beat them 4-2.

Although the victory was against a lower league side, there was a feeling of confidence about and we were hoping we could built momentum and beat our next opponents, newly promoted Crystal Palace. It all went wrong. Sunderland were again outplayed by a weaker side and although a potential comeback was destroyed after skipper O’Shea was sent off, this is where things started getting very worrying.
Paolo began coming out in public and criticising key members of the squad, which confused a lot of people.  He still had a large backing from the fans though, with many agreeing with his ways and still believing he was the right man. Our next game was a predictable loss to Arsenal at home, again showing glimpses of Paolo’s attacking football and the 3-1 scoreline really did not reflect the game, especially with several Sunderland goals ruled out.

Finally the last game he had in charge was the last straw for many people. We played away to West Brom, a team who were also struggling and a game we very much needed 3 points from. For the first 20 minutes we looked promising but West Brom scored and after that Sunderland were again completely out played. The match ended 3-0  with Paolo walking over to the travelling fans and apologizing. He told them to ‘keep their chin up’ and stood there for a few minutes with the fans. The next day, he was sacked…

More reports continue to come out this very second about how Di Canio had a bust-up with his players and how it was them who had him fired much to the outrage of many fans. Rumours of his ‘ridiculous’ attitudes and methods also begin to leak out to the public. At the moment it looks fair to suggest that Paolo was not dismissed simply because of his 5 league games this season.

Some will argue that Paolo was ‘all talk’ and his touchline antics were becoming tiring and irritating after a number of poor results but I believe that Di Canio will always be remembered fondly on Wearside and will always be that ‘one’ we should have given time. His passion and commitment could not be questioned and he truly believed he could turn us into a good side. Of course the derby alone was enough to make him a cult hero. However his majority of results went against him and although performances were improved, we still struggled for points. Maybe he could have done it with more time, or maybe he couldn’t have. The disappointing part is, we will never know.