Albion eye North End's Irvine to fill Mowbray's boots

Jun 29 2009 by Barry Kinghorn, Birmingham Post

West Bromwich Albion could make their move for Preston North End boss Alan Irvine in the next 24 hours.

Irvine has emerged as Albion’s first choice to replace Tony Mowbray as Baggies boss and sources close to the 50-year-old Glaswegian say he would be interested in leaving Deepdale for The Hawthorns.

Irvine, who returns from holiday today, has a clause in his contract that allows him to talk to other clubs which can be triggered by a compensation figure believed to be somewhere between £500,000 and £1 million, and Albion will have no problem matching that as they have the £2 million compensation package they received from Celtic for Mowbray.

That would then leave Albion with the task of agreeing personal terms with Irvine, who sees Albion as a better prospect in achieving his goal of managing in the Premier League.

Irvine, who was David Moyes’ assistant at Everton before taking over at Deepdale, has done a magnificent job at Preston, turning them around from a side that was fighting relegation to play-off contenders.

However, Albion have a squad that is already one of if not the best in the Championship and while he will not have vast resources to strengthen this summer, he will be under no pressure to sell.

Preston are obviously determined to keep their highly-rated manager but chairman Derek Shaw will know that as long as Albion meet the terms of Irvine’s clause there may be very little he can do to stop them.

“If any calls came in then the decision would be down to the manager himself, if the terms of his contract were met, but this is something we would vehemently oppose,” he said.

“The last thing in the world we need at this time is to be searching for another manager – it would be a disaster for us.”