CAMERON Jerome was always unlikely to leave Blues for tomorrow’s opponents Stoke City.

Alex McLeish said that the their January window overtures were doomed to failure.

Stoke were keen to trade Ricardo Fuller for Jerome, and then proposed a straight cash bid worth around £4.5 million. But McLeish and the Blues board wanted to boost the attacking options, not weaken them.

Racing Santander made a lot of noises about Nikola Zigic but never followed things through seriously.

Kevin Phillips stayed put and Blues added Obafemi Martins to the mix, on loan from Rubin Kazan.

“Cameron, it never really got off the ground that one,” said McLeish.

“But I wanted to keep all the strikers and I don’t think Cameron was in a particular hurry to leave the club either, especially getting to the Carling Cup final and with a lot of important games to come up.

“It’s great that we’ve got all the strikers.”

Martins is available for Blues for the first time at St Andrew’s on Saturday and Aleksandr Hleb (ankle) should be available again after missing the vital victory at West Ham United.