Birmingham City to revisit interest in Pavlyuchenko and Boyd

Feb 5 2010 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

“I asked the question of Rangers and Walter Smith said he was going to keep everybody until the end of the season,’’ he added.

“He said they were short of players anyway. If he lost any more, it would be difficult. That was a personal phonecall to Walter.”

Boyd is set to run his deal down and leave Ibrox on a free transfer in June.

Blues have been among a clutch of clubs talking to his representatives about a pre-contract agreement.

“There are others in, but we will pursue that avenue,” said McLeish.

Blues face Wolves at St Andrew’s on Sunday (1.30pm) and their rivals also endured frustration before the winter trading period ended.

In Blues’ case, their comparatively healthy eighth place in the Premier League meant there was less panic to get bodies in.

They could have tried a different approach, similar to West Ham United’s short-term measures, but McLeish said that wasn’t right for Blues.

“I think the league position helped us to make that decision,’’ he said.

“There’s no doubt if we were on 20 points or something like that, we would have looked to have brought in an experienced player like Mido or Benni McCarthy.

‘‘We would probably have gone down that road.

“But I didn’t believe it was a time to do that. I felt that our money could be better served for the summer.”

McLeish intimated Blues’ recruitment processes would be slicker and more defined, especially if football consultant Sammy Yu – who sourced Mauro Boselli – or owner Carson Yeung had players recommended to them via agents and contacts.

The last thing Blues wanted to do was end up like Newcastle United when Dennis Wise was shipping in unknowns, which annoyed Kevin Keegan, led to his departure and contributed to chaos and upheaval.

“It’s actually a good time to plan now, which is what we will be doing,” said McLeish.

“There’s no doubt that we can all sit down – of course including our chief scout Paul Montgomery and the coaches.

‘‘And if Carson thinks there are players out in, for example, South America, he might want to bring in, we can do work on that and get advance information, go out and see people, and don’t make any mistakes.

“I know that Newcastle got in Uruguayans who didn’t kick a ball and cost them an awful lot of money.

‘‘I don’t want that to happen to this club. You need to be sure and always when foreign guys come in, they take time to settle, too.”

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