Former West Bromwich Albion defender Daryl Burgess feels the club's coaching structure needs to be ripped up.

Alan Irvine was sacked by the Baggies last night.

Burgess told the Birmingham Mail: "I think the chairman thought that once he got rid of Clarke I think he thought he'd be inundated with applicants who were quite willing to take the job regardless of the structure.

"And I think he found that wasn't the case.

"It is well documented that Tim Sherwood wanted to come and then obviously couldn't bring his backroom staff.

"As a manager, from my point of view, if you are taking the job you want to surround yourself with people who you know and trust.

"We go on about the structure but it has only been in place for five or six years and it worked with Roy Hodgson and Dan Ashworth but since that partnership left the club it clearly hasn't worked.

"So if he (Irvine) goes it is time to have a complete clean sweep. I think you need to have a complete backroom change.

"I'm not 100 per cent sure what the recruitment side are doing. I think you need a manager in who picks his own players and brings his own staff. At least then if he fails he fails because he has done it wrong, not because of what he has been left with."