I'm not a Mr Nice Guy, says West Brom boss Alan Irvine

Alan Irvine today pledged to restore order to the West Bromwich Albion dressing room and insisted: "I'm not soft".

The new Baggies boss says he will not 'bully' players as he looks to turn the club around.

But Irvine is determined to rule the roost after behind-the-scenes dissent last season contributed to the club avoiding relegation by just three points.

"I am from Glasgow and I am a bad-tempered Scotsman," said Irvine. "It doesn't come out very often but it comes out.

"One of the best pieces of advice I was given right at the start of my coaching career was from Kenny Dalglish, who said 'if you spend all your time shouting at people they will stop listening'.

"But it doesn't mean you have to be soft. Man management isn't about bullying people. Maybe it was in the past but that doesn't work nowadays. You've got to treat people fairly and with respect but they've also got to know there's a line they can't cross.

"Everyone would regard Roberto Martinez as a nice guy but he's not soft.

"And the perception is that David Moyes is a hard man and, having worked with him for five and a half years, he barely raised his voice."

Irvine sprang into Albion brimming with enthusiasm and hunger.

Yet three-and-a-half years ago, the new Baggies boss might not have thanked them for offering him a job.

When Irvine left Sheffield Wednesday in February 2011 as a victim of Milan Mandaric, he had reached a point he believed was impossible – he was tired of football.

The game had enthralled the Glaswegian since childhood and coaching players had become his passion.

But the depressing end to his time at Hillsborough took its toll and being sacked by Mandaric, whose trigger finger had been twitching for almost three months after he completed his takeover of the Owls, left Irvine needing time away from football for the first time in his life.

"After that I needed a break," admitted the 55-year-old, who was unveiled this week as Albion's new head coach to the sound of fury from disgruntled Baggies fans.

"It was never something I thought would happen. But I was drained.

"We had no scouts whatsoever and it was a very demanding job. I had management opportunities to get straight back into the game and I could have gone to Everton straight away to be academy director, but I thought I needed a break.

"I got the Sheffield Wednesday job within a week of leaving Preston and things were going well, having taken over a team that were struggling.

"We had to win 11 of our last 22 games, which is 'winning the league' form, and we failed on the last day and went down to League One.

"But we were near the top of the league when Milan Mandaric came in and he chose to make a change. It was then that I decided to take a break.

"We did all the scouting as a coaching staff did so it was extremely demanding and I decided I would have to take stock and decide what to do next."

Five months after leaving Hillsborough, Irvine felt refreshed enough to return to work and discovered that his passion and energy for football had returned. The offer from Everton had been left open and he took charge of developing the club's next crop of young talent.

It was not the first time he had been at Goodison Park, however.

He was a Toffees player for three years and his most famous spell in the dugout came as assistant to David Moyes.

So the pull of a third spell on Merseyside was too great to resist.

But despite his own experiences at Wednesday and the sight of Moyes under the cosh last season at Manchester United, Irvine never doubted that now was the right time to leave Everton again and return to management.

He admitted, however, that he wondered whether the chance to lead a side in the Premier League would ever arrive.

"I have missed it," he admitted. "I missed the excitement of a Saturday. The job I had at Everton was as secure as you could get in football terms and I was incredibly well looked after. The support I got from everyone, including David Moyes and Roberto Martinez, was fantastic. But there was no excitement on a Saturday.

"I have been in football for too long now to enjoy it being bland on a Saturday.

"I probably did think this chance had passed me by. I made a decision three years ago to take the job at Everton at academy level and I wouldn't have taken any other academy job in the country.

"I took it because of my links with Everton, having been a player and an assistant manager there, and my links with Bill Kenwright, the chairman, Robert Elstone, the chief executive, and David Moyes.

"When I took that job I thought I might well be finished as a manager, but this is such a fantastic opportunity and I'm delighted to be here."

Irvine's coaching journey started with a big break.

It turned out to be lucky, although Albion's new boss might not have thought so at the time.

The former winger was approaching the end of his playing days at Blackburn when he fractured his collarbone and dislocated his shoulder.

What followed was a leg-up from a legend, inspiration from two former Baggies bosses and years of graft that changed his life, altered his career and eventually led him to The Hawthorns.

Kenny Dalglish was about to lead Blackburn to the Premier League title when Irvine showed an interest in coaching and the Liverpool and Scotland legend spotted his potential.

And their association would take the Scot to Newcastle, where his initial taste of first-team coaching whetted his appetite for more.

"I was incredibly fortunate as a young coach because I used to sit at the same lunch table as Kenny Dalglish and Ray Harford, the manager and assistant manager at Blackburn, and listen to them talking about football," recalled Irvine.

"Kenny wasn't a coach but was a fantastic man manager and had a great insight into the game. He was a genius as a player and you could tell that with the things he said and the things he saw.

"Then there was Ray, who was supremely well organised and a fantastic coach, particularly of 4-4-2.

"The two of them would spend time arguing and debating things and I would sit there open-mouthed, taking it all in.

"They were incredibly influential for me. In terms of coaching influences, there were people like Don Howe, Dave Sexton, Ray Harford, Terry Venables and Dario Gradi.

"These were all people I watched regularly. I think Don Howe must have thought I was a stalker because every time he turned up somewhere to do a coaching demonstration I was there.

"I was like a sponge. At the end of that I was as qualified as anybody could be and I thought 'I'd better start coaching'.

"I had already been coaching on a voluntary basis because I started doing coaching badges when I was 26.

"I was still playing when Kenny and Ray first came into the club and then I dislocated my shoulder and broke my collar bone.

"I did it on a voluntary basis at Blackburn and Kenny got word of that and asked if I would help with the youth team while I was injured.

"At the end of that season he offered me a job. I was 35 and could see where Blackburn were going at that time – up.

"My plan was to play for as long as somebody wanted me and I was still registered as a player, but I knew I couldn't be a first-team player and a youth-team coach so I took the job as youth-team coach.

"I did that for a few years and when Kenny moved to Newcastle he took me there as first-team coach and that was a really exciting time. Kenny, the manager, didn't coach and Terry McDermott, the assistant, didn't coach either so I was doing all the coaching.

"I was working with Alan Shearer, Les Ferdinand, Tino Asprilla, David Ginola, David Batty, Rob Lee, Steve Watson, Warren Barton, Lee Clark and so on.

"It was a fantastic group of players with people like Philippe Albert and Steve Howey.

"I could name one top player after another and I had gone from youth-team coach at Blackburn to now being in this fantastic position.

"We finished second in the league, we got to the FA Cup final and we qualified for the Champions League and played Barcelona when Tino scored his hat-trick and it was a great time.

"But Kenny lost his job and Ruud Gullit came in and brought in Steve Clarke and I moved to being academy director.

"Academies were just starting then. It was 1998.

"In 2002 David Moyes called me out of the blue. We were both Glasgow lads but we weren't friends.

"We knew each other from coaching courses but there was no history so it was a real surprise when he called me and asked me to go to Everton as assistant manager and I loved it.

"We had five-and-a-half great years and then I got the call to go to Preston and I went there as manager and enjoyed that.

"Then I went to Sheffield Wednesday and enjoyed most of that but not the last part."

While Wednesday were well placed in League One when Mandaric took charge, they had fallen to 12th by the time he showed Irvine the door.

Previously, a solid season-and-a-half at Preston had given way to a difficult end and the sack.

And it was that record, allied to a season of struggle under Steve Clarke and Pepe Mel, that created the climate of anger into which Irvine walked when his shock appointment as the Spaniard's successor was confirmed. The saga surrounding Nicolas Anelka's quenelle gesture, Saido Berahino's clash with James Morrison and a nightmare season that saw Albion avoid relegation by just three points left a toxic atmosphere around the club.

And Irvine's surprise arrival ahead of more fancied candidates such as former Tottenham boss Tim Sherwood simply added to the feelings of fury.

Yet the new man at The Hawthorns insists the horror of last season will not intimidate him as he looks to make his own mark on the club.

"I saw certain things from a distance because the first thing I do when I get home is put Sky Sports on," said Irvine.

"So you pick up on various things going on but you don't get the depth or the detail.

"I am aware now of what has happened but it's very rare to get handed a job where there isn't a lot of work to be done.

"I know it's a big, tough job but if you're frightened of that you shouldn't come in.

"That was never an option. If I was offered this job I was always going to take it.

"The Albion fans are extremely passionate supporters. We all know that.

"I would just ask them to continue being passionate and give me a bit of time.

"I'm not taking over something that's been going brilliantly.

"It's something where there have been some problems and it will take time to turn things around, but that's the job and that's what has to be addressed.

"I would just ask the fans to keep on supporting the club and the players because that gives everybody the chance to achieve what they want to achieve.

"I want to make this an extremely successful club and the best way of achieving that is if we all work together."

And Irvine has a simple recipe for turning around the Baggies' fortunes and restoring them to the top-half finishes they enjoyed in the three years before last season's brush with relegation.

It involves a careful blend of quality players and hard work.

"There aren't any full-backs at the club and there is a shortage of wide players," he said.

"We don't have a lot of out-and-out strikers here so there are areas that we need to address in terms of numbers, but clearly there needs to be quality in the additions.

"We've got 16 players and three of them are goalkeepers and that won't be enough for a Premier League season, so we need to strengthen that.

"We are trawling through a lot of players' names at the moment and we're trying to make sure we do our homework on them in terms of the knowledge we already have within the club.

"We're looking at many DVDs and we will continue that process.

"I need to build relationships with the recruitment staff and it's vitally important that you get to find out about the character and personality of the players you are bringing in and that involves a lot of behind-the-scenes work, making phonecalls to people who know them and have worked with them.

"The hours in the academy were ridiculous. I was in at 7.45am and wouldn't get home until 9pm that day and on Saturdays and Sundays we had games.

"David Moyes said when we were first talking about the Everton job 'you'll have to work some long hours'.

"I said 'I won't be working any more hours than I'm working at the moment because it's not possible'.

"I love what I do and I can work 13 hours in a day and I will go home and put the football on.

"It's not a situation where I ever think 'I've had enough of this, let's put EastEnders on'.

"I only watch Sky Sports!

"Playing was fantastic and it's much easier in terms of the demands.

"It's not easy being a player, especially at this level, but as a player you just think about you.

"As soon as you get into coaching or management you've got a lot of people to think about and the last person you think about is you.

"The demands on you mentally are huge, but I don't know too many people that complain. They just think 'I love this'.

"I'm not alone in going home and switching the football on. If you're not in love with the game it's very difficult to do this job."

By Steve Madeley