'Sunderland always had an appeal to me, but if I had known about the situation I would have needed to look at it in a different way,' he said.
'I would have had to think a lot more about it, because at the end of the day I want to manage in the Premier League.
'I did not know the club could be going up for sale, I was not made aware of that before. I didn't see us having no money (in January). Even in the summer I knew what we were spending was small in comparison — and I said that to the owner.
'But I hoped it would be a short period and we would then have the next period (January) to get things done. That has shown itself not to be the case.
'I'm disappointed that I will not be able to do some work in January and try and build on what we've done.'