Football

Sam Allardyce is expected to be confirmed as the new manager of Newcastle United by the end of next week. It is understood the former Bolton Wanderers manager will be offered a three-year contract at St James' Park and, although there was no comment yesterday from either Newcastle or Allardyce, who is on holiday in Spain, the deal is effectively sealed.

It is not known whom Allardyce will bring with him as his assistants but it appears that Glenn Roeder's staff, Nigel Pearson, Terry McDermott and Lee Clark, will follow him out of St James'. The trio met the Newcastle chairman, Freddy Shepherd, yesterday and have agreed to take the team for Newcastle's final fixture of the season at Watford on Sunday. Newcastle are not expected to say anything officially until after that game.

What is expected, however, is

that Newcastle's backroom staff will soon mushroom. At Bolton Allardyce had 21 different figures behind the scenes. Mike Forde, "performance director" at Bolton, is highly regarded by Allardyce and is described as "the glue" behind Allardyce's ideas. Forde is a likely recruit, as is Mark Taylor, who is in charge of sports science and who has known Allardyce since their days together at Blackpool. Ricky Sbragia, coach at Bolton, is another close to Allardyce.

Bolton's reaction to any possible developments remains to be seen. Their chairman, Phil Gartside, was decisive nine days ago in enforcing Allardyce's resignation from the club and said Bolton would pursue compensation if Allardyce was to be appointed elsewhere. But Gartside had Manchester City in mind specifically when he was speaking then and the readiness of Newcastle and Allardyce to wait until after this season ends suggests that contractual clauses surrounding compensation may have elapsed by next week. Bolton

were unable to confirm any details yesterday.

Roeder's resignation on Sunday, after the 2-0 home defeat by Blackburn Rovers 24 hours earlier, meant that he became the third Newcastle manager to leave the club in the past three years, following Graeme Souness and Sir Bobby Robson. An advantage that Allardyce will have over those managers from the outset is that they were all appointed mid- or early-season, while he will have all summer to plan. Shepherd has been aware that, while the sackings of Souness and Robson barely caused a ripple of complaint, their timing was the subject of criticism locally.

Roeder, an admirer of Arsene Wenger, had been planning a European summer training camp akin to Arsenal's and Pearson had been to Germany to view facilities there, but it is believed that plan has been shelved and Newcastle will be involved in a foreign tour plus possibly a summer tournament. Presumably discussions with Allardyce will cover such topics.