Graham Williams, Alistair Robertson and John Wile have their say on West Brom's next boss

Williams wants to see Walsall boss Dean Smith join forces with Terry Burton to stabilise the club and bring lasting success.

Burton looks set to return to the club he coached under Roy Hodgson from December 2011 to March 2012 in an advisory capacity and was at the training ground yesterday for talks.

"I hope Terry Burton comes in because he's a good guy who knows his football and has been successful wherever he's been," said Williams, who skippered the Baggies to Wembley glory in 1968.

"And I'd like to see someone like Dean Smith given a chance.

"He's developed strong academy players, he's local, he knows West Brom, knows the players and without spending hardly any money, and he's developed a good team with an attractive style of play.

"They should be looking at good young managers looking to go higher and Albion can be a stepping stone if someone does really well.

"I want Albion to go British with their next appointment because then they will know West Brom the club, know the players and everyone involved."

Williams believes whoever takes over is inheriting a difficult job.

"It's going to be hard for anyone taking over with so many players out of contract and going back from their loans," said the former Wales international.

"Next season is going to be one hell of a hard one.

"But I'm hoping Terry Burton will make it stable like Dan Ashworth did.

"I would think he'd select the players coming in and may even have a say on who the next head coach will be.

"He's been involved with big clubs, his knowledge of players is good and so is his coaching – he has the qualifications to do many things."

Williams wasn't surprised about Mel's departure – and claimed he came into the job 'blind'.

"I don't like to see people not given a chance but he was on a loser from the start, not being able to bring his own staff in," he said.

"If they'd have spent money then great but he had to work within certain boundaries and not knowing his own coaching staff, he came in blind really.

"It (Mel's departure) was expected really. He didn't want the job when they first offered it to him and then they offered it to him again.

"He was brought in to improve things but in fact things got worse.

"The translation difficulties meant there were so many problems.

"I was at the game on Sunday and you could see the difficulties he was having – I don't think anyone understood each other."

Alistair Robertson today insisted Albion must go British with their next choice of manager- but reckons whoever gets it has a tough job on their hands.

Baggies legend Robertson, who played over 600 games for the club from 1968-86 before joining arch rivals Wolves, believes appointing Spaniard Pepe Mel was the wrong decision.

"I would rather go British – Malky Mackay did a great job at Cardiff and is proven, as is Chris Hughton," said Robertson.

"Maybe if Norwich had kept Hughton they wouldn't have gone down.

"But I think whoever takes the job has a hard task on their hands.

"I spoke to Steve Clarke before he left and he was saying they needed two or three players because there are lads out of contract at the end of the season and that it was going to be an important year for Albion.

"Whatever happens, they've got to make the right appointment."

Robertson believes the appointment of Mel, who won three out of 17 games, was doomed from the start.

"He came in very quickly and tried to change a lot of things.

"Results haven't been great and we've been quite lucky in that other teams have played badly.

"I don't think he's fitted into the club as we all thought he would.

"He wanted to bring in his own people but the club always allows a head coach to bring in one person, and the club is fantastically well run from the youths to the reserves and all the way through, so why would they change that?"

Robertson believes the club should have kept his former Wolves team-mate Keith Downing, Albion's assistant head coach, in charge for longer.

"For me Keith Downing had done a good job for a few weeks and I don't know why they didn't give him the job to the end of the season," he said.

"I'm sure Keith would have done a good job to the end of the season, but having said that, I think they should have left Steve Clarke in place for longer.

"Maybe now the club feel they made the wrong decision."

John Wile admitted Pepe Mel's appointment would have been a "miracle" if it had worked out.

The legendary former Albion defender and ex-Baggies chief executive wasn't surprised at the Spaniard's departure after just four months.

"There seems to have been an inevitability about it the way things were going and from what I can understand," said Wile.

"Looking at it from the outside, it seemed a strange appointment.

"Communication is an absolute key in a dressing room, but if you appoint someone who can't speak the native language then you can't change things around at half-time or during the week.

"That must have been very difficult for the players and very difficult for the manager.

"It was one of those situations where they should never have been put together.

"You've got to say you wonder how they would ever overcome that massive single hindrance to good communication, particularly when you're appointing someone with no experience of our players, the Premier League or English football.

"I thought 'if that's going to work, it will be a miracle'."

As for who succeeds Mel, Wile believes Albion must go down a more traditional route and appoint someone more familiar with the English game.

"I think it's essential to appoint someone with experience of managing in this country and ideally with experience of managing in the Premier League," he said.

"But it depends on how the club see their organisation working with the coach, how they see the club moving forward and what they want from a first-team coach.

"It certainly won't be an old-fashioned type of manager, that's a cert."

Despite Mel being chairman Jeremy Peace's sixth managerial casualty in his 12 years at the helm, Wile believes there will be no shortage of candidates to succeed the Spaniard.

And he reckons there is a place for someone like Terry Burton, who has been in talks with the Baggies about returning to the club in an advisory capacity.

"There are a huge number of people looking for a job and I'm sure they will be inundated," he said.

"After all, it's a big club which is in the Premier League and it's an attractive job.

"There has been a lack of football knowledge at the top end of the organisation and it's crucial to have that appointment depending on how the organisation is set up.

"Do you make that appointment before the first-team coach arrives because they have got to work together and the personalities might clash?"

Wile believes the club is also at a crossroads with so many players out of contract this summer.

"It's not an easy time for the club – to be in a position where nine or 10 players could be leaving puts you in a glass-half-full or glass-half-empty situation," he said.

"It's a chance to start again but it could be fraught with danger because if you lose good players and can't replace them, you could be in trouble.

"But it's a situation that they need to act on quickly."