Crystal Palace have already met Sam Allardyce and are ready to install him immediately as their manager, believing that he has a more progressive approach than Alan Pardew, who was sacked on Thursday after a disastrous run of results.

The club’s billionaire American co-owners Joshua Harris and David Blitzer are thought to have been ready to install Allardyce at the start of the month, before Palace’s 3-0 win over Southampton bought Alan Pardew a further three weeks. They have been impressed by detailed plans which he has already laid out to them, including thoughts on how he will improve the current squad and how he will use methods including analytics to lift Palace out of trouble. The Americans have now been instrumental in offering Allardyce a two-and-a half-year deal, with an 18-month break clause.

Pardew also damaged his own changes of surviving a wretched calendar year, in which Palace have won only six of their last 38 Premier League games, by declaring at the start of the month that the American co-owners “perhaps don’t know lot about football.” In fact, the pair – who have invested £50m – are thought to have been disappointed by the 55-year-old’s reluctance to embrace their own enthusiasm for analytics and data in football.

Pardew - who will walk away from Palace with £4.8m, including £2.5m compensation up front – had at his disposal the analytics expertise of the American co-owners’ New Jersey Devils hockey franchise and Philadelphia 76ers basketball team. But he was thought to have actively drawn on the data no more than once every six weeks. That puzzled Harris and Blitzer. Allardyce has, by contrast, been at the vanguard of data since using Pro-zone at Bolton Wanderers, between 1999 and 2007.

Though Pardew was thought to be far closer to the Palace chairman Steve Parish, there appears to have been a unanimous sense of foreboding about the club’s catastrophic decline to their current Premier League position of 17th, three points off the bottom of the table.

Palace will undertake due diligence on the 62-year-old Allardyce. It is a process which is likely to include a request for assurances that there will be no repeat of the kind of conversation which saw him dismissed as England team manager after in September, after claiming he knew a way around third part ownership rules. He is expected to offer the club assurances that he has learned his lesson after the sting by undercover journalists.

There will also be negotiating required on the size of Allardyce’s backroom team, as Palace are already taking a substantial hit with a Pardew pay-off which includes an undertaking to pay his salary until he gets a new job - a minimum £2.3m on-going remuneration. His close friend Sammy Lee, recently released by England, is likely to be among those he will want to bring to west London. There will also be a new fitness coach. In his proposals to Palace, Allardyce identified the side’s questionable fitness and concession of late goals as a substantial area for improvement.

Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Show all 10 1 /10 Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Neil Lennon The current favourite has been out of management since stepping down from Celtic in May after four years in charge in Glasgow, his first job in management. Lennon, who led the Bhoys to the title in each of the last three seasons, is a fiery character on the sideline, often getting into spats with referees and SFA officials. Getty Images Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Keith Millen Has had four spells as a caretaker manager at Bristol City and Palace but only one full season in the top job, at City in 2010-11. Taking over from Steve Coppell, who left just one game into the season, City eventually came 14th under Millen’s guidance. Getty Images Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Steve Clarke Has jumped from a rank outsider to the second favourite to take over at Selhurst Park; Clarke was seen as harshly treated by many when he lost his job at West Brom in December 2013. The previous season they had finished 8th in the Premier League, but ended that campaign badly and started the next one even worse. He has plenty of experience as an assistant with stints at Newcastle, Chelsea, West Ham and Liverpool. GETTY IMAGES Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Tony Pulis Crystal Palace are in this self-inflicted mess because they didn’t give Tony Pulis – who worked a miracle at the club last season – what he wanted this summer. The Welshman is now being linked with a sensational return to the club with some bookies offering odds as low as 4.5. Obviously knows the club and current staff inside-out. Getty Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Martin Jol Another former Spurs manager, Jol’s big reputation took a significant knock after he was sacked from Fulham in December following six successive defeats. If he were appointed Palace would like the man who almost led Tottenham to the Champions League rather than the one that led Fulham to relegation. GETTY IMAGES Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Dermot Drummy A relative unknown, Drummy once had a contract with Arsenal but failed to play a league game for the Gunners before bouncing around non-league clubs. When he retired from playing at 35, he returned to north London as a coach, starting with the Under-16s, working with the likes of Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs. He moved to Chelsea’s Under-16s and worked his way up the ladder, eventually taking charge of the Youth Team, then the reserves. Drummy was recently appointed to the role of international head coach Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Phil Brown The former Hull City boss is currently at Southend United, where he led the Shrimpers to the play-offs last season after years in League Two obscurity. Brown is best known for leading Hull to the Premier League, though some eccentricities, such as singing to fans on the day the club stayed up and holding a team talk on the pitch, have overshadowed the job he did at the club. GETTY IMAGES Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? David Moyes Manchester United still seem to be feeling the ill-effects of the Scot’s reign at Old Trafford. But Moyes got the job in the first place because he had been a brilliant manager at Everton for a decade, taking the club from relegation fodder to perennial top six contenders. Roberto Martinez’s success last season has futher tarnished Moyes’ legacy, but he remains a skilled manager. Getty Images Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Glenn Hoddle The former England manager has not managed any side since he left Wolves in 2006, spending the intervening years as a television pundit. Hoddle returned to football earlier this month when Harry Redknapp named him as a first-team coach at QPR. The Independent understands he has ruled himself out of the running. Getty Who will be the next Crystal Palace manager? Roberto Di Matteo Best known for a highly eventful spell in charge of Chelsea, where he won the FA Cup and the Champions League before getting sacked at the start of the next season, Di Matteo also had good spells as manager of MK Dons and West Brom.

Allardyce could be in place for the Boxing Day fixture at Watford, given the importance of a match against London neighbours just six points above the team. Palace then travel to Arsenal before facing a crunch relegation scrap at home to Swansea City.

Pardew – for whom Palace paid Newcastle United £2.5m compensation when hiring him last year - signed a new long-term contract in the summer after leading Palace to the FA Cup final. But he leaves a Palace side with the worst record of the 92 clubs in the Premier League and Football League, in 2016. In the calendar year, they played 36, won 26 points at an average of just 0.72 points per game.

Pardew leaves Palace with the rest record of any England club in 2016 (Getty)

Significantly, Pardew mentioned Parish and not the Americans in a statement on Thursday in which he thanked the club.