Kevin Ball has asked to be considered as a candidate to replace Paolo Di Canio as Sunderland manager.
The man asked to take temporary charge of the Black Cats in the wake of the Italian's departure on Sunday night guided them to a 2-0 Capital One Cup third round victory over League One Peterborough, and then revealed he would like the job on a full-time basis.
Ball said: "Anybody who is anybody would like to be considered for it. In the sense of what I have done as a coach or a player and not only that, my qualifications I have gone out and got as a coach, I would like to be considered.
"But ultimately, that's the club's decision and I would go with that, whether it was me or someone else, they would have my full support."
Owner Ellis Short is understood to have drawn up a shortlist of potential successors to Di Canio, with former Brighton manager Gus Poyet having replaced Roberto Di Matteo at the head of the bookmakers' market.
Tony Pulis, Steve McClaren and Gianfranco Zola also figure prominently with Ball considered an outsider before his post-match comments.
However, the players Ball inherited from Di Canio could not have done a great deal more to further his application with a confident display against Darren Ferguson's men at the Stadium of Light.
Summer signing Emanuele Giaccherini, who had been substituted at half-time in Saturday's 3-0 Barclays Premier League defeat at West Brom, fired the Black Cats into a deserved 32nd-minute lead from Lee Cattermole's cross.
But Sunderland had to wait until 17 minutes from time to cement the win when substitute Valentin Roberge headed home from Adam Johnson's delivery.
Ball was delighted with the way the men he selected responded to his call to arms, and was particularly pleased with Cattermole's contribution after he spent the summer training with his development squad after being told he had no future with the club.
The temporary boss said: "I thought he put in an excellent performance, along with a lot of others as well.
"I just thought it was a really good performance in the sense that they worked very hard, but also played some good football and created a lot of chances as well.
"We also have to give credit to Peterborough because they came up with a decent game-plan - you can see why they are doing very well at the moment and we wish them all the best as well."
Peterborough boss Ferguson was disappointed with his side's first-half display, which allowed Sunderland to establish a momentum, and insisted events at the Stadium of Light over the last few days had not come into his thinking.
He said: "I can't control what Sunderland do. They have made a decision - first and foremost, I have got to make sure my team performs to the level we can, and we didn't first half.
"The players know that, the are disappointed with themselves. That was all we concentrated on.
"We spoke about certain things Sunderland might do and their strengths and what we felt might be weaknesses, but I have got to make sure my teams plays to a level we know we can and in the first half, we didn't, it's as simple as that.
"We were in the game. We felt the longer it went at 1-0, perhaps we had more of a chance because we know it can get quite frustrating for the fans here. That's evident, especially at the moment.
"But to lose two goals from two crosses is poor, we shouldn't be losing goals like that."
Source: PA
