Alex McLeish reveals David Sullivan had big doubts about signing Lee Bowyer
Nov 30 2009 by Andy Walker, Birmingham Mail
Lee Bowyer
ALEX McLeish lavished praise on Lee Bowyer for the second week running – and revealed that David Sullivan had been one of the midfielder’s biggest doubters.
As he did against Fulham the previous weekend, Bowyer impressed and bagged the winner for Blues at Molineux yesterday.
The ex-England international struck in the third minute at Wolves and has now scored five this season, including one in the Carling Cup.
It’s further proof that, in Bowyer, McLeish has stumbled across another bargain find.
However, if former Blues co-owner Sullivan had had his way, then the Londoner would have never arrived at St Andrew’s.
It appears that Sullivan was one of the critics who questioned Bowyer’s ability to still perform at the top level when McLeish initially sought to bring him to Blues.
Thankfully, Big Eck managed to convince his former boss otherwise.
“I never had any doubts about him, other people did but I did some diligence,” said McLeish.
“I tried to ensure I was bringing somebody in who was the right type and had also still got the legs.
“One thing that you always fear when players get older is that no matter how good they are, when their legs go, their legs go. Bowyer has shown that he is far from that.
“That was one of the things (when he signed). I read one of the papers and even somebody mentioned it to the board saying his legs had gone.
“Dave (Sullivan) questioned it and I said he’s alright. It’s difficult when sometimes you’ve got somebody saying something else. Thankfully, Dave Sullivan trusted me.
“It was a good bit of business, the fact that we could snap him up on a free. Five goals – he’s repaid it big time.”
McLeish now believes that the 32-year-old is returning to the Bowyer of old and sees his goal-scoring ability as a big bonus, another area Sullivan doubted.
“When you bring in midfield players, I know that Dave Sullivan was always pretty big on this, in terms of saying ‘he doesn’t get any goals’ when I’d flag up a midfielder to him,” said McLeish.
“I said Lee Bowyer does get goals from midfield. We thought that he’d probably get a few in the Championship for us but he only got one.
‘‘He should have had six or seven but he’s shown this season that he’s back.
“Can he replicate the Leeds days? I don’t know, it will be tougher but certainly five goals so far is a good return.”
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