Moneyball won't win the Premiership 2012-13

just realized something, hope this is my last thought on the subject

PDC's fascism is only acceptable BECAUSE he's nuts

if he was like Pulis or Moyes, and said the same things, it WOULD seem truly sinister

but a clown like PDC saying it is the one way for it to seem ultimately harmless.

I swear, on F Focus about 3 weeks ago, they asked Lawro and Keown if he'd be a PL manager and Lawro said "someone'll take a chance on him" or whatever and NONE of this came up.

I saw that.

The BBC employed him as a fifth columnist as recently as three weeks ago.

When do MOTD ever mention anything controversial and off-the-field unless it's forced onto the agenda?

"Well, all those Italians are into fashion aren't they?" #RAKE

i think people are just being fascistists anyway - nobody remembers that time when he just grabbed the ball instead of scoring when that dude was injured in that game - fascists are people too.

or that time when the ref dived to the ground to get him banned for 11 games, he didn't even accuse the ref as being a racist whereas a non-fascist would certainly have done so. just two examples.

Is there a spread on how many of these 250 hours Tevez will do?

i liked the sunderland press officer snapping "kindly do not tell me how to do my job" as if he hasnt made a relatively finessable situation look deeply suss enough already

i dunno but 250 hours is like 35 days of full time work

and incidentally also more than 4 season's worth of league matches.

pretty harsh punishment.

'He was very clear when talking to me that this has been a salutory lesson,' said Mr Boliver. 'The likelihood of this happening again is highly unlikely.

'Mr Tevez would welcome the opportunity to put something back into the community. Clearly, he is fit for unpaid work.'

Either the Sunderland press officer has made a complete fuck-up of this or Di Canio has dug his heels in and basically refused to renounce fascism. When standing up and going "I am shit at my job" is the best case scenario it's probably time to look for a career outside PR.

What are the gags? Thousand year team, ssfc, the wehrmackems, cmon

The Wearmacht

Mussolini would be disappointed that his legacy can't produce even a single pun

If he'd only gone back to West Ham, we could've had Eel Duce

I wouldn't rule it out for next season

then consider that a copyright claim

"I am not a racist and I do not support the ideology of fascism"

http://www.safc.com/news/club-news/2013/april/statement-from-paolo-di-canio

http://www.offthepost.info/wp-content/uploads/1537809205-570x379.jpg

meanwhile in hell

"I do not support the ideology of fascism" is either terrible English or a very carefully worded non-denial. I suspect the latter.

idk the 'not' seems in the right place

And it completely fails to address the salutes, the funeral attendance, the tattoo, the admiration for Mussolini. Basically, it's the Shaggy defence: "It wasn't me!"

What's the funeral attendance? And assuming it is carefully-worded, what do you think should happen now?

Attending funeral of leading Italian fascist.

Oh, I don't know what should happen. I'm just exercising my right to have a pop. It's carefully worded enough that Sunderland's catastrophic backroom staff will doubtless claim it puts everything to bed. Next press conference, though, I bet someone asks: "You say you 'do not support the ideology of fascism'. Does that mean you are not a fascist? If you're not, why did you etc etc"

fascism, okay fine water under the bridge, but some things are unforgivable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeGA7sA8HDw

Really hoping opposition fans have "Your manager's a Nazi" chants ready and waiting to go

that pic of moyes... terrifying.

really looks like he's been on a serious binge.

Finding non-terrifying pictures of David Moyes is a more of a task

Do Toploader now need to make a statement about associating with a fascist?

xxp it's a glimpse into the demonic portal that will open when moyes finally receives his £100m summer transfer kitty

those two cloven hooved succubi alongside him are actually seamus coleman and leon osman in their true forms

I think this is the best column I have read on this week's issue

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/sport-comment/dan-jones-paolo-di-canios-politics-are-great-for-his-critics-but-they-have-nothing-to-do-with-being-a-boss-8559571.html

I'm guessing that Dan Jones is a white guy. The continued attempts to throw shade at a Jewish man for resigning when his employer gave the top front-of-house job to someone with at least some publicly expressed fascist sympathies is not a good look.

Do you mean a Christian? Not sure why his being white would affect his ability to place himself in the shoes of another white Jewish man.

The "do Jewish people self-identify as white" argument isn't one that the PL thread needs to get into but i don't think it's too much of a stretch to think that someone whose family had to escape the Holocaust might not be as keen to hand-wave away Fascist sympathies as someone whose probably didn't.

No, I agree with you. I just find the shorthand of "white man" for font of all ignorance and prejudice a bit reductive. There are white men who are members of minority groups too, whether by race or sexuality or for other reasons.

No, i appreciate that but when the context is "should someone who has abhorrent views not be questioned about them as long as it can't be clearly shown that they are affecting their work", which gets wheeled out every time a BNP teacher or policeman comes up, the people going "nah, it's fine as long as they're not calling for the kids to be deported in class" do tend to come from a background that wouldn't be affected by less overt expressions of prejudice.

Like if Scotland appointed a manager who went to Orange Order parades and had a Billy Wright tattoo and some chump argued "if he doesn't make Catholic players learn the flute, why does it matter?, saying "i'm guessing he's not Catholic" would be a fairly understandable response.

Agreed. It was just the specific issue I had, not a general disagreement, and based on seeing this more widely used as well as on this thread.

please dont go there

lol

xp

Surely scottish managers have p much been there

Sharivari with fair point, except everybody prob finds it v hard to believe a politician doing anything on actual principle

Surely scottish managers have p much been there

Ha, was going to say :)

yeah jock stein was a terrible man for that

big JOCK aka as the STEINdriver

Did anyone say ALL Scottish managers? I don't believe they did.

the Evening Standard is not mainly about Miliband, that is just how it starts

it is about synthetic controversy and the idea that someone should not be persecuted for his previously stated beliefs which, as the article says, are probably vague, uncertain etc anyway

It will be quite good to see how Sunderland actually play football, soon

It will be quite good to see how Sunderland actually play football, soon

What to wear? The blackshirts home and brownshirts away?

something something RIGHT WING!

Speaks to how shit they are that i cant actually think of a right winger tbh

Hess Brown? idk, they're just not a good club for the puns

Genuinely wonder what Martin O'Neill's politics are, if any