Mcghee is staying

Dean Wilkins has been promoted from youth team coach to first team coach.

Current reserve team coach Dean White will concentrate on scouting, with McGhee's assistant Bob Booker and Wilkins sharing responsibilty for the reserves.

Wilkins is replaced in his youth role by his No. 2 Vic Bragg.

The changes are a compromise solution to the saga over McGhee's future, prompted by opposition from major investor Tony Bloom in the wake of Albion's relegation from the Championship.

Bloom, a football betting expert and top poker player, initially wanted McGhee out after the Seagulls' slide into League One was confirmed by defeat at home to Sheffield Wednesday on Easter Monday.

The Argus revealed a boardroom split over McGhee's position when the season finished with a 5-1 drubbing by Stoke at Withdean at the end of last month.

McGhee found himself caught up in a power struggle with chairman Dick Knight and chief executive Martin Perry supporting him but Bloom's uncle, Ray, and fellow director Derek Chapman siding against him.

A deal has now been thrashed out following a week-long series of meetings, resulting in a more prominent role for Wilkins.

McGhee now believes a revamped squad can challenge for a quick return to the Championship.

He said: We are in the middle of a transitional period for the club on and off the pitch.

"The squad is changing and the age of the squad is as young as it has ever been. But we still intend to improve it with some experienced additions.

"Along with the younger players coming through gives us a realistic platform to mount a challenge next season."

Knight says McGhee will be given every chance to build a promotion-winning team.

He said: "For the good of the club I am very pleased that agreement has been reached on the managerial issue. Mark has got clubs including ourselves promoted from League One before and is being given every chance to do so again.

"We are deploying the resources we have at the club to strengthen the senior squad support team. Dean Wilkins deserves his chance to apply his coaching skills for the benefit of the senior squad, especially with so many of the youngsters he's developed emerging at that level.

"Our fans will agree that it's excellent news that Dean is making this career move with the Albion, the club he has served so well, rather than with another club.

"Bob Booker and Dean White also have vital roles to play as we shape up to the realities of life outside the Championship. Mark and his staff are fully aware of the challenge ahead."

Ex-Albion midfielder Wilkins, well-regarded as a coach, will continue to play a part in the development of the band of young players he has helped in his former post to progress through to the first team.

Eight youngsters, headed by 18-year-old defender Joel Lynch, earned professional contracts after reaching the quarter-finals of the FA Youth Cup for the first time in the club's history, beating Chelsea and Blackburn before losing at Newcastle on penalties.

Wilkins said: "I'm looking forward to joining the management team led by Mark in taking the senior squad forwarde specially with the number of young players who have come through our very successful youth system. I see it as a real challenge in not only helping to improve these young players, but also in helping to improve the more senior players at the club."

The first task for McGhee and his revamped regime is to resolve the futures of nine senior players whose contracts expire at the end of next month.