The England international winger has been playing reserve-team football for four months at Tottenham Hotspur after falling out of favour at White Hart Lane.
After the Magpies unveiled the 24-year-old at the club’s training ground yesterday, Townsend admitted he could not wait to start a new chapter in his career.
Townsend said: “The last three or four months I have been playing for the under-21s so any Premier League appearance will be great.
“I have always grown up playing on the left. The last three or four years I have played on the right, so I am equally good in both positions.
“Whatever the manager thinks best suits me I will play there.”
Townsend is Newcastle’s third January signing after Jonjo Shelvey and Henri Saivet arrived earlier this month.
He feels he is ready to grasp his chance on Tyneside and said: “You speak to your family and your agent.
“I spoke to people at Spurs who were all in agreement Newcastle was the right club for me at this stage in my career.
“It is important I get back to football and showing everybody what I am capable of.
“Newcastle is the best platform to do that.”
Townsend says he felt emotional after driving out of Tottenham’s training ground this week after spending 16 years at the London club.
He added: “I am not really an emotional person.
“All the first team were in Barcelona so I did not get to say goodbye to them.
“Yet saying goodbye to the staff, the kit men and the under-21s was emotional. It was sad to leave a club I have been at for the majority of my life.
“That chapter is over now and I am delighted to start a new chapter at Newcastle.”