If you want a football team as pleasing on the eye as a well-dressed Christmas tree then send for Arsene Wenger.

If you want one resilient and solid, though ultimately lacking flair, then Rafael Benitez is your man.

Send for Martin O'Neill to build from dynamic youth and Jose Mourinho if you want a club to hog the headlines.

Yet if, as Blackburn have decided, your club needs an uncomplicated character to restore key values, one steeled in the requirements of a Premier League dogfight, then Sam Allardyce is your man.

True, I can imagine 50,000 or so Geordies reading that sentence and screaming pantomime style: 'Oh no, he's not.'

Newcastle fans never bought into Allardyce, who was given the boot last January after just 24 matches on Tyneside, only eight of which were won.

They demanded attacking football. They wanted to be entertained and Allardyce could not deliver.

Not at a club which was taken over by Mike Ashley, which was reportedly riddled with cliques and instability and which persisted in the fantasy that it had a right to mix it with big boys such as Manchester United and Chelsea.

There are no self-delusions at down-to-earth Blackburn, where 18,000 or so trudge to matches at Ewood Park and are grateful to take the points whatever the manner in which they might arrive.

It is a matter of perception and geography.

Newcastle is a one-city club in a northerly outpost, whose passion blinds its fans to the fact that it last won a domestic trophy of any note back in 1955 when it landed the FA Cup.

By contrast Blackburn are one of only four clubs to have won the Premier League, in 1995, the others being Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea.

Yet, because Blackburn have a firm hold on reality in a north-west footballing hotbed which houses Manchester United and City, Liverpool and Everton, plus Bolton and Wigan, there is no sense of having some divine right to success from the fans of one of professional football's founding clubs.

And that is why Allardyce and Blackburn could be perfect for each other. A manager desperate to make an impact to restore his reputation. A club not overburdened by unrealistic expectation.

If Allardyce gets Blackburn playing like the rumbustious Bolton side with which he had so much success, finishing sixth, seventh and eighth twice in the Premier League, then there will be no complaints at Ewood Park.

After all, it is not as though Blackburn are unused to the physical aspects of football, following a Mark Hughes era during which they were heavily criticised for their robust approach.

Neither was the failure of the sacked Paul Ince to do with a lack of steel. It was a lack of organisation and managerial guile in the heat of battle. An inability to influence the ebb and flow of a football match from the touchline. Plus, of course, the fact that his two best players, Brad Friedel and David Bentley, had been sold from under him on his arrival.

In the appointment of Allardyce, Blackburn have recognised their mistakes.

They must now come up with the cash to allow him to wheel and deal in the January transfer window. To use his experience.

This time Allardyce does not need to entertain. He just needs to survive.