Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

Gervinho was throwing out the salutes like a mad thing on the weekend and you didn't hear a sniff about it. Double standards imo

Mark Bosnich did some straight arm salutes to Spurs fans iirc

would be nice if chris powell could put in a good word for him - given the historical (lol, 1998) friendship between cafc and sfc this might be a shrewd move

Yeah. I dunno what dicanio is, or believes, nor does anyone, doubt he's a stabber, doubt he orders stabbings, full sure he wasn't active in ww2 so if the charge is 'came from a background of lamentable alignment with the politics and ideals of a political movement now discredited' then fuckin right lol milliband, if the charge is 'aligns with actual practicing thugs' then more than he would want up on the charge in english football, if the charge is 'but you cant do the symbol with the thingy' the charge is a social question and id say, for all lip service, your punter has as much problem with fascism and associated behaviours as he does with racism, homophobia, idk speeding fines, getting tattoos, walking on the grass- yknow all that other shit that football players, managers, fans, pundits try not to get caught doing but is still somehow out there being done by lots of em.

i have a soft spot for di Canio and agree that most of what he's said/done has probably been more crass than malicious but i think it's pretty clear that pro football is quite capable of ignoring racism unless it's forced to acknowledge it. what we say in public does impact on our professional lives and it's easy for me as a white man to fail to see any serious offence in his philosophical meanderings. i've never had to work with someone who's espoused ideas close to implying that they consider me an inferior species so i don't know how that wd feel.

i am pretty sure that if i was in the local paper campaigning for the BNP then my boss wd probably quite rightly want to have a word with me about our equality and diversity policy.

I'll ask my local hr expert about whether he'd be wise to do that and get back to you.

In any case, fascism vigorously opposes the representative democracy that works to safeguard the interests of different groups and ideas.

Thank goodness for representative democracy, right kids?

I mostly agree with the pinefox re Di Canio but he lost me at "good-but-never-quite-great footballer" because imo there's never been a better footballer to have in a one-on-one with a keeper than Paolo.

Seems legitimate to hold football people to a higher standard re: far-right affiliations given the sport's ongoing struggle with racism and thuggery cloaked in fascist politics. Could Sunderland assert any moral authority in banning fans giving fascist salutes to black players? idk. It's largely in PdC's hands now, i think. If he can satisfy people that his past actions were a mistake and not representative of his current views (while remembering the names of his black players and not just referring to them as "hey, black") then i'm sure he'll be fine. The statement doesn't really go far enough for me.

i have a soft spot for di Canio and agree that most of what he's said/done has probably been more crass than malicious but i think it's pretty clear that pro football is quite capable of ignoring racism unless it's forced to acknowledge it. what we say in public does impact on our professional lives and it's easy for me as a white man to fail to see any serious offence in his philosophical meanderings. i've never had to work with someone who's espoused ideas close to implying that they consider me an inferior species so i don't know how that wd feel.

This is basically OTM, although I'd substitute "work with" for "work for". The question of whether or not PDC, given all this baggage, is remotely the best person to motivate a squad in freefall and threatened with relegation is all tied up in this as well. This stuff is usually handwaved away with "the players won't be bothered about all that" and maybe that's true.

Still kinda hoping for some kind of epic disaster whereby Sunderland lose all their remaining games in a ridiculous fashion and go straight down and no club touches Di Canio again. Sunderland have not exactly been renowned for inspired managerial appointments in the past.

Has any manager ever come in in April and saved a club from relegation?

why did this not matter when pdc was at swindon?

I also feel uncomfortable with the aspect that it is OK for someone who might be defending Fascism being in charge of a League One club, but as soon as they take charge of one in the Premier League then it is suddenly a problem.

Yeah clearly it's the undervaluing of lower league clubs that's the problem here. As far as I know there were protests when Di Canio joined Swindon? The sponsor certainly withdrew support.

I mean obviously it did matter at the time but like it or not, Sunderland are a much bigger and more prominent club than Swindon.

It matters more because ...
1. Unlike at Swindon PdC is now the face of a club that are in the media every day
2. Unlike at Swindon PdC is now managing an internationally known club, shown on TV around the world every week

It's a matter of scale. You wouldn't care about a fascist managing a branch of McDonalds. You'd care about a fascist running McDonalds. Same logic that a BNP councillor was a cause for concern, a BNP MP would be an outrage.

McDonalds in this analogy are Barcelona, Real Madrid or Manchester United. Sunderland and Swindon are burger vans on industrial estates.

The analogy is not so exact as to require you to decide which team represents which fast food outlet.

What are the political views of the person that runs mcdonalds?

Sunderland are shite but their average attendance is roughly the same as Chelsea's and not far off Liverpool's (and about five times Swindon's). They're a big deal.

i still think it's a bit off to suddenly start investigating the guy as a fascist now he has got a slightly bigger job. it's not like having the job makes him a bigger fascist.

plus he was all over bbc and stuff in recent times, with a lol di canio feel to a lot of the stuff. nobody ever seemed to mention the fascist stuff. that seems wrong in hindsight.

personally i only knew about the salute - didn't know there was a case to be made for him being a fully fledged fascist.

sorry i realise my point has been made upthread - but yes to the undervaluing of swindon being a problem.

What is a fully fledged fascist

what are the political leanings of the person that runs mcdonalds

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Thompson_(executive)

Thompson is a graduate of Purdue University and holds an honorary doctorate from Excelsior College.

Filet-O-Fishist

do you not think there's a difference between "political views" and "possibly considers non-white people to be degenerate scum"?

Anyway, fuck you Chris Samba with your comical defending. Only consolation last night was that the Cottage under lights is the nicest place to watch football I've ever been to.

Customers at McDonalds generally don’t think they can get away with racially abusing the staff. As far as I know, Sunderland have generally been pretty good at cracking down on fans pulling this kind of thing but the Premier League and England as an international team still have a significant problem with fans aligning themselves, however loosely, with far-right causes.

The appointment has significance beyond the club – it’s being interpreted by quite a few people that football is still willing to overlook bigotry when it’s convenient to do so. Whether that’s fair or not, I don’t know but di Canio’s statement was weak and his flat-our refusal to engage beyond what has been said is weaker.

i think it's probable that di Canio will be "encouraged" to make a stronger statement in the next few days. if he refuses, that could be the tipping point.

Customers at McDonalds generally don’t think they can get away with racially abusing the staff.

ime they do!

i don't mean that as a jovial suggestion that i've done so myself. just seen it often enough.

If pdc keeps his mouth shut and sunderland manage to get a result at Chelsea I don't think he'll have to clarify anything. It'll all go away and the papers will be more interested in whether Chelsea will finish top four or not etc. If there were any English teams still in the CL this week this story would be over by Thurs imo.

When asked if QPR needed a miracle Redknapp remained indignant at the prospect.

“No, not miracles. Is it? A miracle is, if you are a cripple and I touch you and I cure you. That is a miracle.

“It is not a miracle to win some football matches.”

lol Arry sounded really pissed off after the match last night

Yah especially at samba's decision to play CF for the last ten minutes!

Scandalous goals

his face was an absolute picture the entire match, tempted to compile

also jamie mackie's on the bench when arry was ranting at no one particular after the pen miss

Last night was your Istanbul, except that Xabi followed up his penalty

yeah i really dunno about this samba up front thing, if arry's right that he did it of his own volition then it's a quite epic shifting the blame fail

funny you should mention istanbul as i only arrived at half time for both... i was thinking i'd jinxed rangers yday but maybe i just used up all my comeback power on lfc :/

guhh that penalty was so bad though. yet more evidence that remy is thierry henry's shit cousin

commentator on 5 Live said "where were your players for the first 40 minutes?" and Arry snapped "I dunno probly the same place theres was for the last 40" then appeared to stomp off

is that qpr down then basically? seems a mountain to climb

Still hoping for Sunderland/Newcastle double relegation tbh

Bottom two are down, you can't make up a point a game on everybody above you. They'd need six wins out of seven most likely.

"U all moan about players and wages,but we don't just entertain u we entertain millions around the world,with out us what would u tweet about?"

big chris otm, gonna think of the greater good from now on

I'd been thinking if QPR managed to win yesterday that with decent performances from Remy they might manage to overhaul both Villa and Sunderland. Looks pretty unlikely now though.

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/6342/dropwf.png

The final place is pretty interesting now thanks to Wigan. It's hard to see West Ham going down, but anybody else might. I'd had it in my mind at various times that Southampton, Norwich and Newcastle had saved themselves, but no. Never thought that Stoke were still in this.

Newcastle, Stoke, Villa would all be nice.

http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/matchday/form-guide.html

Current form guide is pretty interesting reading, I hadn't really noticed how badly Stoke were doing, or even Chelsea for that matter.

Chelsea will be fine, probably just need a couple of big signings

Newcastle, Stoke, Villa would all be nice.

Villa have stuck by their manager. Plus it's Lambert. Stoke is not going to happen, that would be too perfect.

The Villa goal difference is a real killer, though they could conceivably catch Norwich.

still think it's Sunderland and Ducegate just makes it more likely