McFADDEN INJURY BLOW

Birmingham City boss McLeish says that he is sad to lose McFadden due to injury. The Scotland international sustained anterior cruciate ligament damage to his left knee in training on Friday and is now set to undergo surgery.

McLeish will then discover how long he can expect to be without McFadden, although Birmingham have already admitted the forward will be missing for the ‘foreseeable future’.

The manager believes McFadden was in the best form of his Blues career before the setback and he concedes news of the injury was hard to take. “It is a shame because I felt James was coming back to his best. He was looking really bright in training. His fitness regime has been fantastic. He is eating the right things,” said McLeish.

CITY VICE-CHAIRMAN RETRACTS COMMENTS

Birmingham City’s vice-chairman has been forced to backtrack his comments over manager Alex McLeish. Peter Pannu, Birmingham City’s vice-chairman, was forced into an embarrassing climbdown today when he claimed that he enjoyed a “phenomenal” relationship with Alex McLeish, 24 hours after accusing the club’s manager of making unreasonable contract demands and “not being totally tried and tested yet”.

Pannu, who had also suggested in his earlier remarks that McLeish was “no [José] Mourinho”, said that he had never intended to criticise the Scot and went on to claim that the two parties were close to agreeing a new contract that could be in place by next week. That stance contrasted sharply with the picture that Pannu had painted beforehand, when he claimed McLeish was “asking for a very large amount of money which I was not prepared to meet”.

McLeish, who led Birmingham to their highest top-flight finish in 51 years last season, when the club secured ninth place in the Premier League after winning promotion 12 months earlier, was disappointed with Pannu’s initial comments and it remains to be seen whether there is any lasting damage to their relationship. Pannu was understandably keen to stress that was not the case today as he tried to pick up the pieces from an embarrassing episode.