Birmingham City boss Alex McLeish has told his board they need a serious influx of support staff to go to the next level.

McLeish has held talks with Brum chairman Carsen Yeung in the last week about improving the club's infrastructure.

He told the Birmingham Mail: "I look at the Fulham model, for instance. We are under-staffed. Well under-staffed for a Premier League club, in the biggest league in the world.

"We can't keep asking the players to do what they've done this year without getting the support.

"The training pitches, for example. For the last couple of months, maybe longer, we've had very limited training facilities. I spoke to Roy Hodgson at the weekend and he said they had been able to train all the time and, of course, there are clubs with undersoil heating at their training grounds.

"It's not the present board's fault at all. It's just when you get hit with a winter like this. That has upset the momentum a little bit as we have gone into the big games with the preparation not as we would have liked in terms of getting out on the pitches.

"That's infrastructure. Support staff are infrastructure. We are very light on the medical department. We have filled a big hole by bringing in Ian McGuinness, the new doctor, a huge hole. The sports science side for us, and the Academy, has to be improved as well. So it's not only at my level, I want to help Terry Westley as well.

"He has been fire-fighting, too, and we have got one or two young boys who are looking promising.

"But we're still miles behind Aston Villa and all these other teams. If we want to be anywhere near them, we have to improve that side of things."