Sam Allardyce should be the new Sunderland manager says Gus Poyet

Former Sunderland manager Gus Poyet has backed Sam Allardyce to become the Wearside club's next boss.

Allardyce, the ex-West Ham, Newcastle and Bolton manager, is understood to be under consideration to succeed Dick Advocaat, who quit the post on Sunday with the club second from bottom of the Premier League.

Poyet himself was sacked by Sunderland earlier this year and replaced by Advocaat, and he believes "it is clear" now that the problem is not who the manager is.

Poyet said: "Sam Allardyce should be Sunderland's next appointment, but I don't know if Sam would like to go.

"Maybe I'm putting it a little on Sam, and he is going to kill me next time I see him. But he had an experience before in the north-east, he knows the Premier League inside and out, and he knows exactly what a team needs to do to stay in the Premier League.

"He has done it everywhere he has been so it's not something new. That experience of being there for so long will definitely help."

Since Ellis Short took over as chairman in 2011 from Niall Quinn, who believes Sunderland are in need of a revolution, the club have had five permanent managers; Steve Bruce, Martin O'Neill, Paolo Di Canio, Poyet and Advocaat.

And Poyet said: "Now there is another manager leaving and it is a little bit too many. I think it is clear now that it is not the manager.

"Sometimes when a team is not working you change the manager and things go well and you can say; 'good decision'. But when it happens four or five times then come on; be realistic.

"I don't think you can blame Martin O'Neill, Paolo Di Canio, myself and Dick Advocaat. There is something that is not working there. If I knew what it was I would call the chairman tomorrow but I don't. Fortunately it is not my job.

"But they have to look somewhere else. They need to find where to look. They need to take an appointment and stick with it whatever results come in the next two or three years."