Sir Trevor Brooking: 'West Ham United stewards could not cope with crowd unrest'

Sir Trevor Brooking has admitted that West Ham United's security situation could be "out of control" and needs a major overhaul following unrest at the London Stadium.

The Hammers' 3-0 home loss to Burnley on Saturday was marred by pitch invasions - including a confrontation between club captain Mark Noble and a fan - and protests towards the directors' box.

West Ham are facing an investigation by the Football Association following the unrest, with Brooking also confirming that club co-owner David Sullivan was struck by a coin towards the end of the game.

Brooking believes that the stewarding at the London Stadium - which is provided externally via the stadium operators E20 - needs a radical overhaul in order to avoid more unrest in the future.

"There weren't sufficient stewards and they couldn't really cope with what was sometimes going back to the bad old days of 25 years ago," the 69-year-old told BBC Sport.

"The club are obviously going to have to look at things with the local police and make sure that trained stewards and police are in place - you're almost looking at it and saying, 'this is out of control'.

"A lot of the stewards who are on duty on matchdays are not West Ham people - they're actually stadium people and sometimes until they get a job there haven't had any experience dealing with football crowds. They were quite young and couldn't deal with the aggression they were faced with."

West Ham, who are just three points clear of the Premier League dropzone, have three weeks to prepare for their next outing against Southampton.