Sam Allardyce has welcomed the chance to manage “a very ambitious club” after making a swift return to football management after his ill-fated 67-day stint in charge of England as Alan Pardew’s replacement at Crystal Palace.

The 62-year-old has signed a contract through to 2019 worth around £2.5m-a-year, marginally less than he briefly earned with the national team, with bonuses applicable if he succeeds in steering the club to Premier League survival. Palace have lost eight of their last 10 games, and 22 over the course of the calendar year, to hover just a point and a place from the relegation zone and will hope to tap the talents of a manager who has never seen his team demoted from the top flight.

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Allardyce will oversee his first training session on Saturday, as well as preparations on Christmas Day, and will be in the dugout as Palace take on Watford at Vicarage Road on Monday. He has acknowledged the priority is to tighten Palace up defensively, with the team having achieved only two clean sheets in the league in close to a year. “You generally get a new job on the back of there being a few difficulties at a club, and I’ll hopefully sort those difficulties out with my experience,” he said. “I’ll try and get a few more results on the board over Christmas and the new year to make everyone feel more comfortable.

“It’s been very impressive the way Palace has grown, and the fact they’ve held their Premier League status over a number of years. I hope I can bring some joy over Christmas and new year, and in the long-term between now and the end of the season. The club itself seems to be very ambitious.

“Certainly the chairman and the owners seem to be taking the club forward in the right direction. I like the look of the squad, and that’s probably the reason I’m here. Hopefully I can help the club move forward. It seems to be very ambitious.

“Attacking players, when you’re in possession, are fantastic. The strengthening in that area by the club and Alan this season has brought a lot of flair to the team, and quite a few more goals compared to last year.

“But the other side is we have to stop conceding when we are not in possession, so the goals we score win us games. That’s what we have to turn around. Let’s stop losing first. The objective is trying to find the basis of consistency to bring us some results.”

Allardyce had travelled down from his home in Bolton to the south London club’s training complex in Beckenham on Friday afternoon and met the chairman, Steve Parish, to finalise the deal. “We are delighted to be able to make an appointment so quickly and fortunate that someone of Sam’s calibre and experience was available,” said Parish, with the hierarchy having offered the new man assurances he will be able to bring in players next month. The team currently imbalanced by the absence of a senior left-back, and need better cover at centre-forward and centre-half.

“January is a very difficult window,” said Allardyce. “And we’ve got to try and make sure we protect the players we’ve got. But, certainly, trying to recruit and make the squad bigger, with a bit more strength in depth, will be key. The players here are good enough but if we can add to that, let’s do it.”

The former Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Newcastle, West Ham and Sunderland manager departed his position with the Football Association in September after only one match having been filmed discussing FA rules on third-party ownership by undercover reporters. He expressed only last week his intention to return to the game as soon as possible, telling beIN Sport “I don’t think I can leave it where it ended”, and had fielded tentative interest from clubs in China and agents claiming to work on behalf of Swansea City.

That impressed some urgency on Palace’s pursuit of his services, with the club’s American co-owners, David Blitzer and Josh Harris, having been made aware of his credentials late last month and increasingly concerned from afar over the threat relegation would pose to their investment. They were impressed by the level of detail, both on Palace’s current squad and potential targets for January, provided by Allardyce in a dossier supplied while the team were embroiled in a six-match losing streak, which culminated in a calamitous 5-4 defeat at Swansea on 26 November.

Allardyce had indicated a desire to bring in his own coaching staff, but will initially lean heavily upon Pardew’s assistants, Keith Millen and Kevin Keen. They took charge of the squad’s preparations for the game at Vicarage Road on Friday, along with the goalkeeping coach Andy Woodman, following Pardew’s dismissal the previous day.