Phil Brown has confirmed to Sky Sports that he is in talks with struggling League OneHartlepool United about taking charge at Victoria Park.
"I have spoken to a number of football clubs during my time out since Preston and I have had one or two very good offers, but it doesn't matter where you are in life you have to consider your own situation," he told Sky Sports News Radio.
"What I have looked at in the main is the amount of Championship clubs that become available and I have not really been considered for them so I think the time is right to maybe prove myself again and go back down a division and grab a hold of a challenge, get my hands dirty as a coach or a manager and try and run a football club to the best of my ability to show people I am not scared of a challenge such as a Hartlepool United.
"It is a former club of mine and I have spoken to them on two, maybe three occasions and we will see what this week brings.
"I don't think you can ever be under any illusions when you're a new manager going into a club, invariably you will inherit a problem otherwise there would not be a vacancy and that is the case at Hartlepool United and I am under no illusions and I am not kidding myself or anyone else."
Brown admits that just saving Hartlepool, currently bottom-of-the-table, would be an achievement.
"It is a big ask and it can't be an over-night success, but to survive this year would be a massive challenge but obviously not impossible," he said.
"I am a North East lad, I have left the North East in 1985 and I still have the strong accent as I go up there on a regular basis. I remember the days in 1979 when I began playing and the old memories of derby battles with Darlington and I have great memories of that."
