Alex McLeish: Friendly against VfB Stuttgart is not ideal

Jul 21 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

ALEX McLeish admitted that tonight’s first pre-season friendly against VfB Stuttgart wasn’t the ideal opener for Blues.

However, he said it was a challenge they decided to take on and that he would choose his side carefully and differently to previous occasions at this time of year.

On last season’s tour, Blues had a routine work-out against local Tirolean side Kirchberg and eased to a 7-0 success.

Stuttgart, captained by ex-Villa favourite Thomas Hitzlsperger, will provide a much sterner test.

They finished third in the Bundesliga and although they lost ace marksman Mario Gomez to Bayern Munich for £26 million, they are trying to sign Real Madrid’s Klass-Jan Huntelaar.

“Stuttgart wasn’t an ideal choice but we decided to take it on, we felt it would be a good test for the players,” said the Blues boss of the fixture in Sell am Zee (6.30pm).

“It also allows me to maybe have a more tactical approach to the game rather than saying it is an out-and-out fitness test, which it would have been had we been playing a weaker team. Players have still got to get fitness but I won’t be throwing players on willy-nilly, I will be choosing very carefully who plays in this game.”