Alex McLeish rules out big money moves at Birmingham City

May 20 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

ALEX McLeish has confessed that Blues are unlikely to be splashing out fees of around £8m or £9m on players this summer.

The boss said he accepted he wouldn’t be indulged the same way of a Sunderland, or even a Stoke City.

McLeish said, naturally, that he was in the market for a couple of centre-halves following Liam Ridgewell’s injury and Radhi Jaidi’s release.

But the kind of price tags such players would command put many of them out of his range, he admitted.

The issue was raised at a fascinating Banks’s/BRMB Football Forum, to be broadcast by 1152 Gold Radio on Friday (7pm).

Blues’ defensive needs were discussed at the event and McLeish threw a question back out to the floor at the Sheldon Heath Social Club, Birmingham.

He asked what kind of defenders did supporters believe Blues needed and the names of Matthew Kilgallon, Roger Johnson and Steven Taylor were touted. David Wheater was also suggested.

“With all due respect, who are we going to be able to buy to satisfy our supporters, totally?” queried McLeish.

“It’s difficult for us to buy top-end centre-halves in the Premier League.

“If Middlesbrough go down, then Wheater? He is a decent player and someone we have watched over the last five weeks just in case they say ‘do you want a bargain’?

“But we think they will be looking for about eight or nine million pounds.”

When a supporter in the audience shouted: ‘Haven’t Blues got that?’ McLeish replied: “Not for one player.”

He went on: “Listen, I don’t think it’s the time [here] for me to say ‘the directors have got to give me 30 or 40 million’.

“I would love to be given that kind of money.