Alan Pardew hopes to take charge of his first game as Crystal Palace’s manager at Aston Villa on New Year’s Day after finalising the terms of his departure from Newcastle.

The 53-year-old was back on Tyneside on Tuesday, entering the club’s academy via a side entrance, to bid farewell to the squad who he had steered into mid-table in the Premier League after a dismal start. The announcement he has returned to Palace, his first professional club but a side languishing in the relegation zone, on a four-year contract worth around £2m-a-season is anticipated on Wednesday.

While he is unlikely to oversee Palace’s final training session before they depart for Birmingham, with the caretaker manager Keith Millen having undertaken the preparations this week, Pardew’s preference is to be in the dugout at Villa Park rather than in the directors’ box. The venue is the scene of his most celebrated moment of his playing career, a headed winner against Liverpool in the 1990 FA Cup semi-final. His eagerness to be involved a reflection of the precarious position in which Palace find themselves.

Pardew and the club’s co-chairman Steve Parish have already discussed transfer targets for next month’s window, with Palace eager to secure at least one striker and a left-back. Joel Ward, more naturally a right-back, has been operating on the opposite flank for much of the last year. Bafétimbi Gomis, a striker who interested Pardew at Newcastle before moving to Swansea under freedom of contract last summer, remains a target.

“It’s difficult because we’re trying to bring in players to improve what we’ve got, and that doesn’t come cheap in January when clubs don’t want to lose players,” said Millen, who had been involved in discussions with Parish and the former manager, Neil Warnock, over potential targets. “But window will be really important. We need some fresh faces to help what we’ve got here. We don’t need many: one or two, maybe. We’ll be very good then.

“There’s obviously a relationship between Alan and the club from his playing days. It’s a new person with new ideas coming in, and that always gives the place a lift. You get that initial surge of energy. You can see in training the lads were bright and enthusiastic. There’s that anticipation of someone coming in with fresh ideas. There’s a good structure at the club, good organisation in the way we play which has got us success. It’s important whoever comes in realises what we’re good at.”

This has been Millen’s second spell in temporary charge of the team this season, and third overall, and both he and the first-team coach, Ben Garner, will be retained under the new regime. They are likely to be joined by Andy Woodman on the coaching staff.