Chris Hughton proved himself cut from the right cloth at Newcastle United. And that means Birmingham City should benefit after making him the new appointment to the St Andrew’s hot-seat.

After ending his playing career, Hughton carved out his reputation as a highly-capable coach at Tottenham Hotspur over a 14-year period.

And when it came to striking out on his own as a number one, any doubts over his ability to step forward were dispelled at St James’ Park.

Hughton, after caretaker spells, managed Newcastle to the 2009-10 Championship title.

David Pleat, who managed Hughton as a player at White Hart Lane and also had him as his assistant, said he should get more credit for his time on Tyneside.

“At Tottenham Chris was a great one to put responsibility on to when the manager, if you like, was otherwise detained,” said Pleat.

“ Whether it was arranging a player for a function, whether it was getting players together to go and coach, to do extra sessions in the afternoon, Chris was your man.

“But, at one stage, I didn’t think he would be a manager.

“I didn’t know if he had the will to break away from Tottenham and go on his own.

“In the end it was kind of forced on him when Martin Jol left and they had a complete clean sweep, when they brought Juande Ramos in.

“It was Colin Calderwood, strangely enough, who did come to see me and said he had a chance to go to Northampton, and what did I think?

“At that moment I wasn’t sure Colin had done his miles, whether he had done enough. But he went and he was quite successful at Northampton and he was quite successful at Nottingham Forest, he got to the play-offs and then promotion.

“And when Chris did leave Tottenham, he did remarkably well at Newcastle.

“People felt that Newcastle had the players and that’s why they did well. Coloccini, Enrique, Barton and so on, that’s why they won the title. But the bottom line is that those players, those highly-paid players, are some of your most difficult people to handle.

“They are prima-donnas so I think his achievement at Newcastle has been under-rated by many people.

“That was a very difficult job. And I know for a fact, because I was in touch with him, he was in that training ground early in the morning working extremely hard.

“Bear in mind he had a difficult chairman as well – to say the least – and Derek Llambias was difficult too in terms of communication. He didn’t have what I would call football people to refer to. They were people from the City and had come from business.

“Chris handled that situation remarkably well, smoothly getting them promotion, introducing Andy Carroll on a more regular basis and developing a player who they eventually decided was worth £35 million.

“So his achievements at Newcastle should not be under-rated.

“It is not easy to handle what are called big-name players and, remember, there were some big-name players who got displaced in that team as well, like Alan Smith for example, whom he left out halfway through the season when they were successful.