Newcastle United chairman Chris Mort has revealed that the club want their next manager to play attractive football and be able to speak English, as the search for a successor to Sam Allardyce hots up.

He told the club's official website: "There has been a great deal of speculation in the past week over who will replace Sam Allardyce as the manager of Newcastle United.

"The most important thing now is to get the decision right and lay solid foundations for the future. That is why we will take whatever time is necessary in making the decision.

"This will be our first managerial appointment since taking control of the club and if we are going to get it right, then the new manager will have to satisfy a number of criteria.

"These include, to have the team playing with the right balance of winning football and stylish football. This is probably the most difficult task.

"There are some clubs in the country where it is essential that the team generally tries to play football with some flair and this is one of them.

"Also the manager must speak English. There have been media suggestions that we would only appoint a British manager. That is not true.

"However, we think this is a big enough job without the manager having to operate through an interpreter, so the manager will have to be someone who is able to speak English.

"We need someone willing and able to take on and cope with Newcastle United. As a big club with massive potential this is a fabulous club to manage and some of the candidates we have talked to appreciate that fact.

"However, we are not currently a Champions League team and in six seasons out of the last ten we have finished in the bottom half of the Premier League.

"That means we are not necessarily going to interest a manger who is already at a team playing Champions League football, or whose only ambition is to manage a top team in Spain or Italy."