Morning all! Now, you may or may not have heard the news that West Ham legend Paolo Di Canio has resigned as manager of League Two side Swindon Town. But the big question is: what does that have to do with us Irons? Well, nothing. We have a manager, named Sam Allardyce, and until that is no longer the case, what Paolo Di Canio has done is of no relevance to us.
However, esteemed British tabloid the Daily Mirror beg to differ. They're not the only paper to have made this painfully obvious yet incredibly tenuous link; the Independent also gave it coverage; but given their previous coverage of the West Ham managerial situation, the Mirror are the one that deserve criticism most for it.
PDC's resignation at the County Ground has, according to Mirror hack Alex Crook, "paved the way" for a glorious return for the Hammers hero, as manager. It is not clear on what authority the way is being paved, but the article is altogether a much more cautious piece than the original one bringing up Di Canio, by John Cross, eight days ago. Cross' article on the 11th of February stated that "the Hammers are scouting around for possible contenders (for the manager's job) and Di Canio would be a popular choice amongst fans." It was confident, cocksure and, quite frankly, sounded like a stab in the dark; particularly as another one of the "contenders" named by Cross was Watford manager Gianfranco Zola, whom West Ham co-chairmen David Gold and David Sullivan sacked from the Upton Park hotseat in 2010, despite steering the club to Premier League survival.
Crook says in his piece today however that Di Canio is "among the candidates to succeed Sam Allardyce if his contract is not renewed by the Hammers this summer." This differs somewhat from the earlier article, which seemed to imply that the clubs already had a shortlist; now, it seems, it's more a case of if the job becomes available and that no shortlist exists. Which is it? We don't know. What we do know is that this story about Di Canio, isn't. The two articles, when compared against each other, don't add up at all, and any West Ham fan with a single brain cell in his head will pay this "story" no attention whatsoever, particularly as Blowing Bubbles understands from a highly reliable source that the man himself has told close friends that the West Ham job is his first choice, but he won't wait for it, as two Championship clubs- as yet unnamed- are interested in hiring him as their new manager. Given that the Hammers have not made any kind of approach to Di Canio and in fair probability, will not make any approach, it is difficult to see where the story has come from other than a simple link based on West Ham and Paolo's history together.
By Alex Shilling
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