Revealed: Birmingham City's plans for behind the scenes changes
Feb 27 2010 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail
IT’S been a buzz word of Alex McLeish’s for a while now.
And even his wife has noticed.
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Infrastructure – and Eck insists the club’s needs have to be addressed if they are to stand any chance of becoming a decent force.
“I mention it a lot and probably fans will be going ‘he bangs on about that infrastructure, that’s a favourite word of his, and parameters’,’’ said McLeish.
“Even my wife picks me up on them as well but these are essentials.
“I spoke to Carson Yeung the other night and I thanked him for the sanctioning of certain things like the new full-time doctor, like some of the other staff who we have been put on contracts of security.
“So some things have been done and there are others still to do so we have to prioritise.
“And we’ve got to start getting it in place before the end of the season.
“I can’t be sitting there having a meeting with Peter Pannu and Michael Dunford the day after the season ends saying ‘now we’ve got to do this’ because the process would maybe take two or three months (ie in the recruitment of other personnel. We need to sow seeds now.”
So what does the infrastructure encompass?
“It’s everything,” said McLeish, turning to a mid-table rival.
“I look at the Fulham model, for instance. We are under-staffed. Well under-staffed for a Premier League club, in the biggest league in the world.
“We can’t keep asking the players to do what they’ve done this year without getting the support.
“The training pitches, for example. For the last couple of months, maybe longer, we’ve had very limited training facilities. I spoke to Roy Hodgson at the weekend and he said they had been able to train all the time and, of course, there are clubs with undersoil heating at their training grounds.
“It’s not the present board’s fault at all. It’s just when you get hit with a winter like this.
“That has upset the momentum a little bit as we have gone into the big games with the preparation not as we would have liked in terms of getting out on the pitches.
“That’s infrastructure. Support staff are infrastructure. We are very light on the medical department. We have filled a big hole by bringing in Ian McGuinness, the new doctor, a huge hole.
“The sports science side for us, and the Academy, has to be improved as well. So it’s not only at my level, I want to help Terry Westley as well.
“He has been fire-fighting, too, and we have got one or two young boys who are looking promising.
“But we’re still miles behind Aston Villa and all these other teams. If we want to be anywhere near them, we have to improve that side of things.”
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