• Manager still in charge despite being sacked on Friday • 'All it's done for me is to give me more drive'

Brian McDermott has revealed his bizarre treatment over the weekend has only increased his drive to succeed as Leeds United manager.

McDermott, 52, returned to work at the club's Thorp Arch training base on Monday, having been sacked and subsequently reinstated since leaving it on Friday. That evening it appeared he had been fired by the prospective new owner Massimo Cellino, but the current owners GFH Capital were forced to release a statement the following day to insist he remained in position.

"Why would I want you walk away from being the Leeds United manager? It doesn't make any sense. All it's done for me is to give me more drive," said McDermott, speaking for the first time about a tumultuous 72 hours. "The reason I am sitting here is because this is Leeds United, I am Leeds United manager and I want to be Leeds United manager.

"I have spoken to a lot of people in the game, a lot of really important people that have said 'you shouldn't go back', but if you saw the support that the team got, that the staff got, the personal support I got on Saturday, it was incredible.

"The fans proved they're a class act. It's their football club and it doesn't belong to anyone but the fans. It has to be said that whoever eventually takes this football club on has to have those people first and foremost in their minds. Nothing else matters."

McDermott was referring to the incessant chanting of his name by Saturday's 31,000 crowd, the club's biggest since the opening day of the season. The 5-1 victory over Huddersfield, secured in his absence, was Leeds' biggest since he arrived on a three-year contract last April.

"That performance on Saturday tells you everything you need to know. It's time now for us to come together and move forward," said McDermott, whose selected XI for the match was changed on Friday night by a third party on and later reinstated.

"I got a phone call on Friday night, from the football club, from Chris Farnell, to say that I had been relieved of my duties and there was a letter on its way to me. So that was that," recalled McDermott. "On Saturday morning I got another phone call from GFH to say that wasn't the case and a couple of statements came out."

The second of those – while the match was in progress – provided confirmation that McDermott remained Leeds manager. However, with the ownership issue at Elland Road still unresolved, McDermott's long-term future has a spectre hanging over it.

"I spoke to David Haigh and Salem Patel of GFH today and they are the owners of the football club. Obviously, I've had certain assurances about my position, the running of the football club, and that all football matters are down to me but who's going to be the future owners, I don't know," he admitted.

McDermott met the controversial Italian businessman Cellino, who owns the Serie A club Cagliari, last week, and has had to carry out his daily duties with Gianluca Festa – Cellino's football adviser – hanging in the background. Festa, the former Middlesbrough defender, was involved in the re-selection of the team in the hours immediately after McDermott's Friday evening phone call. Festa also tried to take a place on the Leeds bench for last week's match against Ipswich last week. However, McDermott was assured of autonomy in talks with GFH over the weekend. "Basically, I am responsible for all football matters at the club. Nobody will be invited to the dugout, dressing room or to speak with the players unless the manager okays it," he said.

Cellino's company, Eleonora Sport Ltd, became the leading candidate to buy the club after the collapse of a deal GFH Capital had agreed with Sport Capital – headed by Haigh and businessman Andrew Flowers, the owner of Enterprise Insurance – following a two-month period of exclusivity. However, Cellino, 57, who has two previous convictions for fraud has yet to have his Leeds takeover ratified by the Football League. A second group, a Yorkshire-based consortium called Together Leeds, have also been in negotiations to invest.