Former West Ham manager Sam Allardyce hit out at the club's co-owners David Sullivan and David Gold over his exit, describing the pair as "ungrateful".

Allardyce was relieved of his duties following West Ham's final Premier League match of the 2014-15 season in May, after the Londoners decided not to renew the 60-year-old's contract.

The Englishman's departure came after guiding West Ham to 12th in the standings, having finished 13th and 10th in the seasons prior.

Speaking out about his four-year reign at Upton Park, Allardyce pulled no punches in his view of West Ham's unrealistic expectations, while dismissing their ambitions of qualifying for Europe under new manager Slaven Bilic this term.

"'The West Ham Way' is obviously not winning every week, like I tried to do," Allardyce said in quotes published by the Mirror.

"I did everything they asked for and they wanted more, and I found that extremely ungrateful in terms of what I'd done for them.

"They thought we could get into Europe [West Ham played in Europe this season via Fair Play table] and thought they might be able to get to a cup final, and that wasn't in the format of the job description when I started.

"I don't take kindly to people, who don't appreciate what you do for them.

"We both decided to part company in quite an amicable way in the end, but I certainly wasn't going to stay, in my mind, for a long, long time."

Allardyce added: "If David Sullivan and David Gold have told Slaven Bilic that they expect to get into Europe this year then I think it's way beyond the capabilities of the squad at this moment in time.

"I told them that. Perhaps that's one of the reasons why they didn't renew my contract in the end?

"West Ham was a case of building a broken football club back up again. [Getting West Ham promoted] was the biggest job I had done in one season.

"Ultimately, my biggest problem was finishing tenth in the first year [back in the Premier League] — I would have been much better off finishing fourth from bottom!"