Birmingham City - Alex McLeish was tempted to bid for Bobby Zamora

Sep 2 2010 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

Alex McLeish has admitted that he toyed with the idea of making another play for Bobby Zamora on transfer deadline day.

Aside from securing the headline-catching signing of Aleksandr Hleb, plus Jean Beausejour and Martin Jiranek, the Blues boss thought about an ambitious raid for one of his earlier summer targets.

Three formal bids were tabled to Fulham for Zamora, but McLeish stopped just short.

He admitted: "I never saw the striker there that I really craved - unless I was going to be paying 10, 12 million.

"I never went back in for him officially, for Bobby.

"We sounded out Fulham privately but we never made an issue of it because I had read Mark Hughes comments in the newspaper about  him being a focal point for Fulham and that he had started the season great.

"I thought there was absolutely no chance, so it didn’t go any further. But I can understand why there were bids for him."

Blues had an offer of around £8 million for Zamora at the season’s end rejected, and also went in for Paul Konchesky, who ended up at Liverpool, reunited with Roy Hodgson.

McLeish has decided not to become embroiled in a tit-for-tat scenario over the saga of his new contract.

Peter Pannu claimed that McLeish was ‘asking for a very large amount of money which I was not prepared to meet’.

The acting chairman said McLeish deserved a bonus for his ‘performance last year’.

Pannu added: "But he has not been totally tried and tested yet, the club was relegated and then promoted and last year we stayed up, so he has done well, but to suggest that he is in the top class like a Mourinho, well he is no Mourinho yet. The ball is in his court."

Having digested Pannu’s words and asked about them at a media conference to discuss Blues new signings, and what the latest was on his deal, McLeish was reticent.