The Paolo Di Canio Column

As usual I don’t look or even feel sorry. I am a determined manager and my focus in on selecting the best 11 and making the least mistakes I can. It is a big responsibility, but this is my job.

I know there will be some players disappointed, I always remind them that it is difficult to remain out of the side, or play five minutes here and there, but this is football.

Already I am sorry for those who will miss out but I am focussed only on the decision I will make either Saturday night or Sunday morning.

At the beginning of the season I used to think too much.

To be a good manager you don’t have to feel sorry for those who don’t always play but encourage them so that when they do play they give their best.

You only have to have doubt about who is going to play and why. Who will give you the best against a certain type of opponent to win the game.

Those who miss out, miss out. This is football.

I was left out of teams many times when I was a player, but back then I realised later in my career that it is part of the game.

I wanted to leave AC Milan because I was on the bench too much, but I did my job and after I won the league and European Super Cup I was satisfied, so I decided to move to Celtic to play regular football.

The players have to do the same and I hope that they will have my attitude. Whatever happens, whether they start or on the bench, they must always give their best, then when you are not satisfied any more you can change.

I don’t mind if there are some sad faces because that is part of the game.

I am not here to make all the players happy I am here to make 1000s of fans happy and my board happy.

Paolo on...why some foreign players struggle to adapt to English football.

In Italy and in England it can even take the top players a few months or even a year to settle.

Oliver Risser is in a good period, Tuesday was not just his best game for me, he has done his job since before December.

He has integrated very well and sometimes plays great and sometimes plays not very well.

Alessandro Cibocchi only really started to settle about one month ago in my opinion. A few months ago he was a little up and down but on Tuesday night we saw that he did well.

They both played well and for me showed that they are an important part of my squad for the future.

Still, I don’t change what I said a few months ago in that signing so many foreigners at the beginning was a mistake.

We see now that Alberto Comazzi, Lukas Magera, Mehdi Kerrouche and Etienne Esajas are all not in the squad at the moment.

They were all players that were supposed to be the main part but it did not work out and in the main I won’t have too much foreign players in the future.

Paolo on...diagnosing heart conditions.

I signed the same time for West Ham as Marc Vivien Foe and obviously it happened to him when he was playing in France.

What happened made me feel vulnerable as a person, not just a footballer.

Seeing something like that happen makes you grow up very quickly and you cannot take life so freely.

I can understand this attitude when you are 10, 12, 15 or 18 but an incident like this makes you realise how thin the line is in life. Anything can happen.

For this reason you have to live your life with dignity and honour.

Marc was one of the fittest players. He had an incredible physique like Marcel Desailly. He was a marathon man in the middle of the field, young with three kids and a family and so what happened was such a shock.

We are so fragile, so we have to live our life for the moment and always do kind things for people.

The heart scan should be compulsory in every medical for an athlete. The heart is the engine that athletes use and put under pressure every week so how can it not be tested?

Each time I moved from West Ham, Sheffield or Scotland, I never had this scan. In Italy I had a cardio test and it can help discover some problem.

Like Kanu, he found problem while at Inter Milan and he had an operation.

Anything can happen of course but these scans can maybe prevent bad things from happening if it is a genetic problem.

I am still surprised when we signed a player at the beginning of the season from abroad. His joints, ankles and knees were all checked and then he signed. There was no check on the blood, heart or respiration.

That was not good but it is not the case now.

Paolo on...Lionel Messi.

You never know if there will be another player like him. This cannot be predicted.

When I was young they used to say a player like Pele happened only once every 50 years but then came Maradona.

Then they would say a player like Maradona only comes around once every 25 years, but then came Zidane.

So with Messi you don’t know. Even now there are a group of young Brazilian players who you can already see are geniuses.

Messi at the moment is by far one of the best, even better than Ronaldo so it will be difficult to better him.

Some people say he would not be the same in England but that is not quite true.

Maybe he would be less effective because if he played say for Chelsea now how would they play? Boom, boom, boom. They don’t play football and Messi can’t do everything on his own.

But even if he is less effective he would still smash the league. Look at Tevez, he was one of the best players here the last two or three years.

You can imagine Messi and what he can do. He is a powerful, class player. If he played for Chelsea obviously he might not score 35 goals, he would maybe score 18-20 but he would still be a fantastic talent.