Roker Roundup: Danny Graham on Di Canio ‘nightmare’ & KLD jets off to Uruguay to visit clubs

Graham on Di Canio nightmare

Ahead of Sunderland’s trip to take on Swansea former Sunderland striker Danny Graham was the latest guest on the Roker Rapport Podcast, where a player who had two different spells with the club talked about his time on Wearside, as well as his career in general.

During the podcast, Graham spoke about Paolo Di Canio’s time in charge and described the Italian’s spell as a nightmare:

Yeah, it was strange.

He was a nightmare, to be honest - I’m not going to lie about it - he was a nightmare.

He had this power trip about him. I remember him arguing with Connor Wickham, probably two or three days in when he missed a header, from there everyone is “what’s he doing?”.

It was kind of a build up of little things, it was just a disaster really.

Listen, he kept us up, do I think he kept us up? No. I don’t think he kept us up, the players kept the football club in the league.

He’s knee sliding at Newcastle away, for me he knew what he was doing. He knew if we win that game and he does something the fans will be on his side, it’ll give him a bit of breathing space.

There were no days off in 36/37 days. We beat Everton at home, 1-0 and then we go to Newcastle away, pump them 3-0 and normal football clubs are off Sunday-Wednesday, depending on the fixtures, we were in every single day.

I lost count after 35, it must have been between 35 and 40 days, it was something we’d never seen before and, again, it was a power trip.

That’s how he thought football clubs should be ran.

We went to Italy, there was no menu, it was exactly what he wanted you to eat, there was no ketchup, there was no nothing.

After that Italy pre-season trip, I went on loan to Hull and we must have signed about 34 foreign players and you could tell it was going to be a long season. You could just tell it was going to be a long, tough season, especially with him in charge.

You can listen to the full Roker Rapport podcast with Danny Graham by subscribing via Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

Photo by Leila Coker/MI News/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Kyril to visit Uruguay

Sunderland chairman Kyril Louis-Dreyfus will visit the home country of fellow board member Juan Sartori this weekend.

According to Telemundo, as well as visiting the offices of the Uruguayan politician who serves as a non-Executive Director of the club, Louis-Dreyfus plans to visit various professional and youth football teams.

Sartori has not hidden his desire to see Sunderland become involved with a Uruguayan club and that desire saw talks over a potential takeover of top flight outfit Rentistas last year, only for a potential deal to fall through.

Louis-Dreyfus’ appearance in Uruguay is likely to restart rumours of potential investment by Sunderland in Sartori’s home country.

Photo by Stu Forster/Getty Images