John Carver has publicly declared his interest in the Newcastle job for the first time.
Carver, speaking after the Magpies' 1-0 defeat at Leicester in the FA Cup third round, has been in caretaker charge of first-team affairs for the past two matches, while Alan Pardew's move away to Crystal Palace has been engineered.
That was officially finalised on Saturday morning but Carver felt unable to go public until the matter was sorted, despite telling the Newcastle players his plan to "throw his hat into the ring."
Carver, who believes the St James' Park job will be that of a head coach rather than a manager, told a news conference: ''Alan has gone now, it's been announced.
''At the time when all that is going on it's difficult to say how you feel, but obviously deep down inside I want to be head coach of this football club. I am going to throw my hat into the ring. I did tell the players but I couldn't make it public -- now I am.
''I have got to be honest. I haven't spoken with [owner] Mike [Ashley], but there's no need for me to speak with Mike or be in touch. The role is of head coach, not manager. The job of a head coach is to prepare the players and the team for the next match, which is what I've been doing.''
On the pitch, Leonardo Ulloa's first-half header was the difference between two much-changed teams.
The Argentine's goal was a rare moment of brilliance in a game low on quality, despite the FA Cup tie being the only one played on Saturday between two Premier League teams.
Perhaps the lack of quality could be explained by the 14 changes in total -- seven each -- made by the two managers.
Newcastle created little during the game and the majority of the 4,319 Geordies who had made the journey turned on their team late on and chanted for owner Mike Ashley to "get out of our club."
They had seen their team lose for the fourth away match in a row and even booed the players, together with Carver, at the end as they came over to applaud the fans.
Carver said: ''The fans pay their money and they are entitled to do that and react that way.
''It's hugely embarrassing but they are entitled to do that. One thing I was going to make sure I do was make sure the players did go over. I wasn't going to shirk that responsibility and I wanted to make sure the players didn't either.''