Alex McLeish reveals all on Birmingham City's summer spending plans

Mar 9 2010 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

ALEX McLeish today revealed Carson Yeung has not indicated that the club’s heavy financial losses would ruin his forthcoming transfer spending.

However, the Blues manager predicted that the Hong Kong tycoon was unlikely to make up to £40 million available, due to the current economic climate and the cautionary tales of clubs like Portsmouth, where Blues travel tonight.

Yeung pledged between £20 million-£40 million for fees and wages in January when he took charge, and a similar sum for the summer.

Blues posted a £20.5 million pre-tax loss for the last financial year, to August 31, 2009, encompassing the Championship promotion season.

And the report to shareholders stated that the board were ‘‘mindful of the pitfalls that are inherent’’ when spending too much on fees and salaries.

‘‘The aim is to therefore manage these costs whilst being as competitive as possible within the club’s financial constraints’’, it stated.

This was interpreted – incorrectly – that Yeung was therefore now not going to make any money available to McLeish.

“Nobody has said anything, that it (the accounts) would affect things,” McLeish told the Birmingham Mail.

“We were talking about spending £20 million in January, I only spent six of that so I would imagine that 14-plus – whatever there is to be spent this summer – we should be reasonably healthy.

“If we want to remain a Premier League team and certainly get to where we are now, season after season, then you have got to keep up with the Jones’s.

“Do I think we have to spend a fair bit to keep up with them? Yes, we need to improve again and enhance the squad, in forward areas we need to add to the quality.

“And these areas are not cheap. You don’t get cheap players coming in there.

“We’ve spent, I think overall in the season, round about the £15 million, £16 million mark. But that was for about six or seven players and to get six or seven players for £16 million this summer I think would be well nigh impossible, unless we can get four or five Bosmans.”

Various bids of between £12 million-£8 million were made for Roman Pavlyuchenko, Kenwyne Jones and Ryan Babel in January.

Had Pavlyuchenko and Aruna Dindane been added to Michel and Craig Gardner, which was the plan at the death, it would have represented a £31 million commitment in fees and wages by Yeung.