Newcastle boss Sam Allardyce this afternoon clinched the first signing of his reign when he landed striker Mark Viduka.

The 31-year-old put pen to paper on a two-year deal with the option of a third after passing a medical in London earlier today.

Allardyce travelled south to meet the out-of-contract Viduka as he flew in from a family holiday with the player keen to tie up his future before joining up with the Australia squad for their Asia Cup campaign.

Meanwhile, Allardyce is confident he can tame midfielder Joey Barton. Newcastle are close to announcing the 24-year-old's signature after sealing a £5.5 million switch from Manchester City earlier this week.

Barton will arrive at St James' Park with a reputation which precedes him, but Allardyce has no qualms about taking him on.

He said: "The bottom line is I have got a great player. The quality of the player is the most important thing.

"Sometimes they come with difficult characters and can be difficult to handle. But I have had players with worse reputations than Joey Barton's and I never found them to be a problem because of the way I communicate with them and the way they communicate with me.

"He came here because he wants to win things, and that is why I have come here. We have got the same ambitions. I am here to improve his career. He has my respect and he won't let me down.

"My side of the job is to temper the other difficulties he has run into in life, not so much on the field, but off the field. I have asked him, as a maturing young man in his mid-20s, to curb that side of his life and make sure he focuses on what he loves best.

"We want him to progress rapidly as a footballer at Newcastle and hopefully in the England set-up again because that's where he wants to be. He is good enough, but he has got to do a lot of work off the field to get back to that. I am confident I can handle him."

Newcastle beat off competition from big-spending West Ham to land Barton, who committed himself to the Tyneside club after holding talks in the north-east on Tuesday.

Allardyce said:  "I have spent a fair amount of time talking to him, trying to persuade him to come here because there was competition.

"We used my persuasive powers as a manager and the persuasive powers of Newcastle United as a football club to get him to come and, after a long, hard negotiation, we managed to do that.

"He was due to talk to the other club that had an offer accepted, but we managed to persuade him not to do that.

"We told him we were the best place for him and we have got a young, exciting midfielder with great attributes who is coming into the prime of his career."