... Sam Allardyce as their new manager.
A flood of bets has got the current West Ham boss as early favourite.
He is struggling at Upton Park as his side haven't won in seven games.
With time running short, and a trip to West Ham on Saturday, the Sunderland are expected to act quickly.
Sunderland are likely to opt for a short-term fix at this stage of the season before re-evaluating in the summer depending on their league status and experienced Dutchman Dick Advocaat is also an early favourite.
The 67-year-old has managed Holland twice, worked for four years at Rangers and left his previous post in charge of Serbia last year.
Should he take the reins he would be presented with a similar problem to the one that greeted Di Canio when he arrived two years ago.
The controversial Italian had even less time to secure top-flight status, but collected eight points from seven games to do the job.
He was sacked that September after his early impact wore off.
Poyet now joins the likes of Di Canio, Martin O'Neill, Steve Bruce and Ricky Sbragia in failing to turn around Sunderland's fortunes in recent years.
Poyet's season took a turn for the worse in February when he appeared to blame unrealistic expectations among the club's fans for the ongoing struggles.
Sections of the crowd vocally took against such an implication and Poyet later claimed the media had mis-represented his words.
But there was worse to come on Saturday when their flaccid first-half display against fellow relegation battlers Villa saw around half of the 46,000 crowd walk out early.
Sunderland's remaining Premier League fixtures:
Mar 21 – West Ham A
Apr 5 – Newcastle H
Apr 11 – Crystal Palace H
Apr 25 – Stoke A
May 2 – Southampton H
May 9 - Everton A
May 16 – Leicester H
May 24 – Chelsea A
TBC – Arsenal A