Hammers future comes first, Di Canio

Paolo di Canio, West Ham’s Italian striker, insists he is more concerned with getting the club off the bottom of the Premiership than sorting out his own future.

Club captain di Canio believes too much is being made of his own situation and is happy to leave contract negotiations to his agent.

His current contract runs out at the end of this season and there are concerns that, at 34, he may not be offered the deal he wants.

But di Canio told the club’s official website whufc.co.uk: “It is not the time to talk about that; my agent is speaking, working for me. It is normal; he hasn’t done anything different from another player’s agent.

“Agents do their job for the players. Every player can go to a club and ask what they want to do with them, even if they still have three years left.

“I don’t understand why it is a big problem me finding out, as the skipper with seven months left; I am not a player on trial and either I will be kept or, if not, I won’t.

“If I am not required it is a case of knowing and if that is going to happen I will still give 100% as a professional – because everyone knows I am professional and I will keep fighting for this team, but I will know what I have to do for the future.

“I don’t want to leave this club even at the end of the season with relegation – I want to leave with good memories in the Premiership because the supporters deserve it.”

Di Canio also played down his difference of opinion with team-mate Tomas Repka after he was involved in an animated exchange of views with the Czech Republic international defender after last week’s Worthington Cup second round tie at Chesterfield which the Hammers struggled to win on penalties.

We were speaking about the game as friends. It is normal when you have passion about the game to argue. There is no problem and I will cook him some nice Italian pasta!

“I prefer players like him than a player who puts his head down and says ‘yes’ every time or ‘sorry’ – it is easy to say after one or two mistakes, but now is not the time to say sorry,” said di Canio who is backing manager Glenn Roeder to lead the Hammers out of trouble, hopefully starting with the next match away to fellow-strugglers Sunderland on Saturday week.

“We are a good group and the manager has a chance to get us out of this with a great team; but we have to do it as soon as we can.

“We can’t wait until January or February or it will be more and more tough; we have to get something at Sunderland – and take it from there,” he added.