Pannu denies rift with McLeish

Birmingham City acting chairman Peter Pannu has moved quickly to deny a rift between himself and Alex McLeish.

McLeish is yet to sign a new deal at St Andrews and there had been claims of a fall-out after Pannu was quoted as 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”.

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.”

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