With the team apparently hurtling towards a second relegation in three seasons, Walsall manager Kevan Broadhurst has described the 'radical surgery' his club requires if it is ever to regain its Coca-Cola Championship status.

Broadhurst, a former Birmingham City player in the early-1980s, was given the top job at Bescot Stadium less than two months ago and although his arrival has not signalled an upturn in results - Walsall remain in the League One relegation zone - he has identified a raft of changes that need to be made if the Saddlers' decline is to be arrested.

Having previously pulled Northampton Town and Bristol Rovers out of equally dire situations, Broadhurst was brought in as much for his specialism of crisis management as the need to improve on a record of just one league win in 2006.

Speaking ahead of a run of three home games in eight days - a sequence that could lift Walsall out of trouble - Broadhurst emphasised his concern that the club's entire work ethic had to be lifted.

In doing so, he made it clear Operation Bescot was no overnight stay at the local cottage hospital: "This club needs a major, major overhaul; radical surgery to push it forward," he said.

"It's been on a downward spiral for a number of seasons and, if it continues, it will just keep going down. It needs to be addressed.

"It is a great job for whoever gets it, but it does need some major cuts and sorting out all round; the playing staff and the whole work ethic of the football side of things."

But Broadhurst maintains the dysfunctional first team is just the tip of the iceberg. Without saying as much, it is not difficult to infer that previous owners have been none too careful.

"There is a whole club that needs to be sorted out, not just the 20 players we have got now, it has got to go wider than that. It has got to go to the scouting, the coaching, the work ethic, the whole club," he warned.

Although Broadhurst was only appointed until the end of the season, he has an agreement with owner Jeff Bonser that his tenure will be extended if he keeps Walsall in League One. If not, the two men will discuss the future during the summer.

If he remains in the Black Country for next season, Broadhurst will oversee a backroom shuffle but also make space for men like Mick Kearns, Mark Kinsella and Simon Osborn, who have helped him so far.

Kearns has stepped up from his role with the youth team to assist Broadhurst, but is a reluctant No 2. Both he and Broadhurst recognise he will be better used with a return to his old post.

"He is a terrific coach who has done a fantastic job," Broadhurst said in reference to Kearns' development role. "This is one of the clubs in this area that has produced players for its first team. For a club like ours to survive and do well, it needs a number of players to come through to add to the ones that come in.

"Mick has always done that very, very successfully. If you take him out of it to use him somewhere else, that youth set-up won't function as well without him. We need a thriving youth set-up to go with the rest of the club."

He also reserved praise for Osborn and Kinsella, senior players who have stepped into the breach in what has been a tough season. He suggested their services would be retained, but said that the whole talent-spotting procedure needed work.

"Ossie and Kins have done a super job and there are things moving forward with those two, but we do need to look at the overall scouting and recruitment as far as the first team is concerned," he said. "There is no scouting network here - there's another big area that needs to be addressed.

"The club won't get back into the Championship through financial muscle. It has got to do it a different way. What I would endeavour to do is get players who have a hunger and a determination to go forward.

"If you get that, it's a type of league in which you can get success. If you look at Brent-ford, they have not got up there by throwing cash around, like Colchester they have done it by hard work. That's what this club will have to do."

The question is, will Broadhurst be given the opportunity to do it?