Ex-Newcastle United boss Sam Allardyce questions club's purchase of Burnley striker Chris Wood

Burnley’s New Zealand international looks all set for a £20m move to Tyneside to help The Toon in their bid to avoid the drop, and while Allardyce has always been a fan of ‘old school’ number nines, he’s sceptical Wood will hit the mark in the north-east.

"He's one of the best in the Premier League. He still has one of the best goal records by headers," Allardyce said on Wood, in conversation with Footy Accumulators. “Whether he would suit Newcastle though, I'm not so sure.

“Burnley play specifically to Chris Wood’s strengths and that’s to be direct. That’s him at his best. Burnley put a lot of balls in the box to use his physical strength. Not many teams do that these days.

“I'm not so sure they'll want to change the way they play to suit him and I'm not so sure the way they play will help him score goals. Without Callum Wilson, they don't seem to have that goal scorer they need - I had it at Sunderland."

Allardyce has experience in helping teams beat the drop, and while he admits that a lot of work on the training pitch goes towards sorting out the defence, successful relegation battlers need a match winner.

"As much as I worked on the defence and stopping goals from coming in, I had one man who would win a game for me called Jermain Defoe,” said Allardyce. “He scored 18 goals in a struggling team, and without him we would’ve been relegated."

For the Magpies, their next signing has to be a goal threat and a Defoe-esque player, according to their former boss, and he believes the signing of Kieran Trippier is a sign of things to come.

“I don’t believe he [Trippier] would’ve signed without the spending that’s going to continue,” he said. “Whether that’s going to be enough to save them [from relegation] this year, who knows?”