• Describes former club as weak and players cowards
• Says it is his destiny to manage West Ham

Paolo Di Canio has defended his tenure as Sunderland manager, calling the club weak, his former players cowards and saying he believes it his destiny to one day manage West Ham.

The Italian was sacked by Sunderland in September after a tumultuous 13 games in charge, amid talk of a player rebellion against his disciplinarian style. The Italian replaced Martin O’Neill at the end of last March and was credited with saving the club from relegation after inspiring a 3-0 win at North East rivals Newcastle in only his second match in charge. But despite bringing in 14 new players over the summer, things quickly turned sour with an opening day home defeat to Fulham kicking off a run which yielded just a single point from their first five games of the new season.

“It depends what the club wants, if the club is weak then they believe in the players, if they are strong they believe more in the manager,” said Di Canio. “That is not something that can only happen at Sunderland, it can happen anywhere.

“To be honest, I have never been part of a group of players that went to the chairman, because that is for cowards. I do not like that, it’s not fair. I prefer confrontation with my manager.

“It does not hurt me, it was four or five or six [players], but I do not like people who do not look into your eyes when they speak to you. I really believe in work, work, work so my standards are very high for those people without ambition. People with ambition want Paolo Di Canio. Sometimes you can make mistakes because you are under pressure, but in terms of what I want people to be, there was no mistake.

“It was an experience I had, a good experience the first part [keeping the club up], but a bad experience the second part, but that is something that can happen to any manager in the world.”

Sunderland have since made the final of the Capital One Cup and moved to within a point of exiting the Premier League relegation zone under new boss Gus Poyet, but Di Canio believes the players should take responsibility for the poor start to the season.

“There are sometimes managers that are not good enough for some groups but there are also some groups that are not good enough for a manager. In this case, it is the second option,” he said. “If you read what those players said when I took charge last year, they praised me. In some way, they blamed the previous manager but there was no chaos about that at the time. It is not an issue for me. I was sacked like a hundred managers in life, but when it happened to me, there is always said to be a problem, but there was not a problem.”

He added: “Five games cannot cancel what I did in the seven games before then, when I saved the club.”

Di Canio does not rule out taking a job below the top flight, but the former Swindon manager is still hoping for a Premier League return. “I am ready to return,” he said. “Football is my breath. The Premier League is my aim, of course. Every manager thinks they are ready for the top, top level but I do not only think about the top. The top for me is the place where I can train and work in my way.”

Di Canio also relishes his connection with West Ham, whose supporters have chanted his name during their alarming slump under Sam Allardyce. “They were chanting my name four years ago when I wasn’t a manager,” added Di Canio in an interview on BBC’s Football Focus. “Because my experience there was like they were my family. Everybody knows this [it would be special to go back there] but I don’t want to say this now because it is not fair. All I can say is, one day before the end, whether they go up or down and what players they give to me, it will happen, it’s obvious. That is my destiny.”

• Paolo Di Canio
• Sunderland
• West Ham United

theguardian.com