Former Sunderland boss Martin O'Neill has called his successor at the north east club Paolo Di Canio a "managerial charlatan," in a huge criticism of the former West Ham United striker. O'Neill lost his job at the Stadium of Light in March earlier this year after a poor run of results left the club in a perilous position going into the final few games of the Premier League campaign. Di Canio was appointed his successor, and immediately set about changing things at the club, including banning ketchup and ice in drinks in his totalitarian approach to management, much to O'Neill's dismay. Upon being asked by Sky Sports about the man that replaced him at the Black Cats, O'Neill replied, ""Paolo Di Canio? That managerial charlatan. "Paolo stepped in there and basically, as the weeks ran on, he ran out of excuses. I had a wry smile to myself. "It was like a 27-year-old manager stepping in and the first thing you do is criticise the fitness of the team. If you've ever seen Aston Villa play, you'll see the one thing I pride myself on is teams being fit." The 61-year-old has recently been named Republic of Ireland manager, with fellow former Sunderland boss Roy Keane as his assistant, and O'Neill hopes John O'Shea, Sunderland's captain and Ireland international, asks him for ketchup in their next meet up. "I'm hoping that, at some stage or other, John O'Shea asks me at the dinner table to pass him the tomato sauce," continued O'Neill, "I will dispose of it immediately! "If I feel you can't win games without tomato sauce I will empty it on his plate, with the chips. "Paolo is Italian. John Robertson, my old assistant, once said that, if every team in Italy has pre-match pasta for their meals, how come three of them still get relegated each year? It's an interesting point, ability might come into it." The former Northern Ireland international ended by stating that he would have liked the chance to continue coaching the Mackems until the end of the season, and feels he also would have been able to keep the side up. "I'd have loved to have the opportunity to sign about 15 players like Paolo did," he added. "I never got that opportunity. "I think, really, although nothing is certain in football, that, given 20 years of reasonable success in the game, I would have accumulated the five points necessary from the last seven games to have stayed up. "So yes, I was disappointed, because it was a club that I grew up supporting as a boy." The Black Cats currently sit in 19th place in the Premier League standings, with new manager Gus Poyet at the helm.