Pannu Denies Bust Up With McLeish

Birmingham acting chairman Peter Pannu has dismissed any ideas of a bust up between himself and Blues manager Alex McLeish over contract talks.

Pannu was quoted saying McLeish was asking for ‘a very large amount of money which I was not prepared to meet” and that he was ‘no Jose Mourinho”.

But it looks like his words were taken out of context and the press have made a bit of a mountain out of a molehill. Pannu insisted on Thursday the comments had not been meant as a criticism and the Blues boss could sign a contract at the start of next week.

He told the Birmingham Mail: ‘This is all nonsense. We are just perhaps inches away from Alex signing a contract, possibly by next week. Our relationship is phenomenal, we are very strong and close, and I want to dispel this notion that there is anything wrong.

‘In fact, I spoke to Alex about the Mourinho reference and we laughed about it. In the whole context of the interview I did, it would not have had a sting to it. But to take out the extract like that made it look worse than it was.

‘Mourinho came up because I mentioned that the agent who made the initial approach to me about Alex and his contract represents Mourinho. Nothing was meant as a slight to Alex in the context of the conversation I had.”