• Midfielder is a free agent after leaving West Ham in the summer • ‘Kevin and me go a long way back, as everyone knows,’ says Allardyce

Sam Allardyce has said he may make the former Newcastle United captain Kevin Nolan his first signing as Sunderland manager.

Nolan is a free agent after leaving West Ham in the summer following Allardyce’s departure at the end of last season, and the new man in charge at the Stadium of Light suggested he was considering a reunion with the 33-year-old midfielder.

“I need to assess the squad and take it from there. Kevin and me go a long way back, as everyone knows,” said Allardyce after being unveiled as Sunderland’s new manager on Tuesday. Allardyce also made Nolan his captain during the pair’s long spell together at Bolton Wanderers.

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“Nolan is an addition I may look at in the future, I may choose to enter down that line but at the moment it’s about giving the players I’ve got here an opportunity to show what they can do.”

Allardyce has vowed to stay longer at Sunderland than he did with their arch-rivals Newcastle as he begins his mission to drag the club out of trouble.

The 60-year-old was sacked after just eight months at St James’ Park in January 2008 when the then new owner Mike Ashley decided the man he had inherited from the former chairman Freddy Shepherd was not the right one for the job.

However, Allardyce, who also had brief spells as a player and then as a coach under Peter Reid on Wearside, is determined to hang around this time.

He said: “Well, I want to be more successful than I have been in the past, that’s for sure, and I want to stay a bit longer!

“I didn’t stay very long as a player, I didn’t stay very long with Reidy because I got the Notts County job and I didn’t stay very long at Newcastle, so I hope I stay a lot longer than that.”

Allardyce rebuilt his career at Blackburn and then West Ham after his bruising experience on Tyneside, but he insists that the way he was treated by the Magpies, who will provide the opposition in his second game at the helm, no longer hurts.

He said: “No, no. Newcastle is in the past, it’s all over. I’m a man for the future, not to dwell on the past. It happened.

“Like I said at the time, I thought it was the right club at the wrong time for me and that was it. It was a decision made and you move forward.

“Since then, I have done pretty well since I have moved on, and now I am back up in the north-east to try to make Sunderland the best I possibly can.”

Allardyce was coy when asked about the appointment of a No2, saying only that progress was being made, but refusing to name names. It is understood, though, it will not be Reid, with long-time associate Neil McDonald and Steve Round among those also being touted for the position.