Birmingham have re-opened talks with midfielder Sebastian Larsson over a new contract.

The Swedish international has been trying to agree a new deal at the club for over two years so it will be a relief to finally secure his services.

His current deal will run out next summer, which will mean that he can talk to interested parties in January and possibly sign a pre-contract agreement.

Seb’s representatives met with Birmingham’s acting chairman Peter Pannu on Thursday. So hopefully a deal can be sorted soon.

DO YOU THINK SEB CAN AGREE A NEW DEAL WITH US? HAVE YOUR SAY BELOW

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.”

Alex McLeish’s future at Birmingham has been thrown into doubt by stalled contract talks.

Birmingham vice-chairman Peter Pannu has claimed that McLeish is asking for too much money in his new contact.

McLeish’s contract talks have been going on for a number of weeks and worryingly for Blues fans they don’t look any closer to being resolved.

“I have been in talks with his representative and he was asking for a very large amount of money which I was not prepared to meet,” Pannu told the Daily Star.

“He has not been tried and tested yet,” added Pannu. “The club was relegated, 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.”

Marcus Bent has joined Wolves on loan from Birmingham City until January.

Bent has fallen down the pecking order at St Andrews after the arrivals of Nikola Zigic and Matt Derbyshire.

“Marcus is an experienced striker who has played plenty of Premier League football and scored goals,” said Wolves chief executive Jez Moxey.

“People still talk about whether we’ve got enough Premier League experience, and Marcus will add to that.

“He’s also a different type of striker to what we have in that he’s a physical presence.

“We needed someone after the departure of Andy Keogh and Marcus can do a job for us.”

Blues had this game taken away from them as Owen Coyle’s hoofer’s and chasers pillaged a point aided and abetted by Ref Friend (to whom?). Match of the day pundit Martin Keown tried to suggest that Bolton tried to play football and to illustrate his point showed them passing the ball 5 times after the kick off. I am willing to bet they would be hard pressed to find another such sequence in the remaining 98 minutes the game lasted.

This as a game was as ugly as a smacked back side and Blues did try to play football in the windswept soccer outpost that the Reabok has become. It was hard to believe that there is still a month to go of summer as the 1500 Blues fans shivered on the shady side of the ground.

Blues opened the scoring for the first time this season when Mcfadden freed Bowyer on the left and the returning midfielder crossed, Jerome flicked on, and Roger Johnson fired home from six yards. Blues were in total control and Bolton’s tactic of lumping the ball in the box with Davies backing into the opposing defence while frustrating the Blues, showed no sign of causing much more than annoyance.

After 35 minutes Blues should have gone further ahead when a dazzling run by Gardner saw his cross find Mcfadden whose volley was well struck but bounced of Finnish goalkeeper, Jaaskelainen.

Seconds later there was an incident which beggared belief. Roger Johnson tumbled clumsily into the Bolton keeper and while apologising and helping the keeper to his feet received a smack in the gob as Jussi lost the plot. The ref who had not stopped the game should have awarded Blues a penalty but bottled it and settled for a Red card to Jaaskelainen. There were several minutes of ugly scenes and as TV pictures showed Mr Friend cautioned Johnson at the direction of Martin Petrov.

Petrov was subbed and exchanged words with the Blues bench before being told to sit down and shut up. Bolton reacted to this setback by increasing the number of balls in the box and continued to batter and barge the Blues back line as Mr Friend lost all will to punish the home side further.

Six minutes into the second half Blues added a second goal when Mcfadden picked out an unmarked Jerome who headed into the path of Gardner. After a couple of goes the Brummie netted to sttle the match, or so it seemed.

With twenty minutes left and the game becoming even more disjointed by the minute, Bolton was awarded a mysterious foul near the half way line. Robinson’s high punt into the box saw Davies cleverly make Johnson commit himself to heading a ball which he was never going to get near.

The decision was probably right if harsh and Davies put away the penalty. Having awarded several fouls against Davies without a card and missing at least as many more, the ref had to get one right eventually. Johnson should have been more careful.

The free kick awarded to Bolton with ten minutes to go was just a mystery. At the time no-one could understand what offence had been committed and watching Tv replays showed that Cahill had jumped all over Ferguson.

Robbie Blake must have thought it was Christmas as Blues wall gave him half the goal to aim at and Foster was a yard too near the centre of the goal. Blake netted with ease.

Blues were then tasked to go and win the game again and should have done so when a neat pass from Bowyer found Jerome but the striker’s weaker left foot was not capable of beating stand in keeper Bogdan.

This was a second game where Blues left an away ground with two points squandered. Blues only conceded 2 penalties last year while this season has seen one per game. We have suffered three appalling referees but it would be foolish to blame that on the points dropped. Blues and Johnson particular need to get officials to make mistakes that go our way. Sympathy towards the itinerant ref will work wonders rather than get on his case.

Whatever the officials try to do to us, Blues have two more points than they had in the equivalent fixtures and are in a European position.

Blues: Ben Foster, Stephen Carr, Lee Bowyer, Roger Johnson, Liam Ridgewell, Seb Larsson (Keith Fahey, 76), Craig Gardner, Barry Ferguson, Scott Dann, James McFadden (Matt Derbyshire, 68)

Subs not used: Maik Taylor, David Murphy, Garry O’Connor, Nikola Zigic, Enric Valles.

Goals: Johnson (4), Gardner (51)

Bookings: Johnson (36), Larsson (72).

Trotters: Jussi Jaaskelainen, Gretar Steinsson, Paul Robinson, Gary Cahill, Fabrice Muamba, Stuart Holden (Mark Davies, 78), Johan Elmander (Robbie Blake, 68), Martin Petrov (Adam Bogdan, 38), Zat Knight, Kevin Davies, Chung Yong Lee.

Subs not used: Matt Taylor, Sam Ricketts, Marcos Alonso, Andy O’Brien.

Goals: Davies (71, pen), Blake (81)

Bookings: Muamba (89) Davies (80)

Sendings off: Jaaskelainen (36)

Referee: Kevin Friend (Frankly incompetent, free kicks that led to penalty and the equaliser we just wrong. Davies committed 10 fouls before cautioned. Muamba should have been off after his tackle on Bowyer and was not cautioned till last minute.)

Attendance: 18, 139

Birmingham hope to complete the double signing of Armand Traore and Martin Jiranek.

We have already signed Ben Foster, Nikola Zigic, Enric Valles and Matt Derbyshire to his squad so far this summer, but have missed out on Moussa Dembele and Charles N’Zogbia over the last two weeks.

“We are trying our best to bring people in to improve the quality of the squad,” said McLeish said.

“The near misses I’ve had with Dembele, N’Zogbia and others, that’s unfortunate when you see how good these players are but there are other ones out there and we’ll try and add somebody before 6 o’clock on Tuesday.”

Subs
Fahey        (6) Did a job protecting the lead.
Derbyshire    (6) Some nice touches, should have scored

Manager’s Mark  (7) Let down by the players at 2-0 it should have been over. Could we not have tried to win it late on?

Matt Derbyshire

Matt Derbyshire proved to be the difference in this televised Carling Cup ties as little Rochdale embarrassed Blues though much of this rain swept contest. Whenever a Manager of a senior club trots out the old adage about players being given the opportunity to show why they should be in the team you can guarantee the players don’t. Matt Derbyshire however played his way into the starting line up for Sunday with an hour of class and scored what proved to be the winning goal. It was the new guy’s first start and while the others muddled around like strangers Derbyshire kept Dale at full stretch.

Blues played pretty pretty football and got nowhere while Dale played positively and with no little authority.  They went ahead on 25 minutes when a poor Michel pass aimed for a badly positioned David Murphy was cut out. The impressive O’Grady was free and his cross was volleyed by Elding and although Maik Taylor saved well Jones was on the spot to finish.

That was a wakeup call and Derbyshire, after getting the better of Marcus Holness was floored by the visiting defender. For some reason the decision took an age to make but eventually the ref pointed to the spot. McFadden who has missed his last two spot kick stepped up and scored well.

Two minutes after the break a Larsson corner found the head of Johnson and Murphy was on hand to volley home.  Larsson was on for an injured McFadden and he latched on to a superb pass from Bowyer fired in a great low cross that Derbyshire forced home.

That should have been it but Blues without a recognised full back on the right found Dale annoyingly difficult to finish off. O’Grady completely bamboozled the hapless Fahey and picked out Jones who scored with ease.

The full back area desperately needs looking at as Fahey has no clue how to play the position and Murphy is so long out of the game and appears to have lost what little pace he had.

Blues introduced Zigic (who I promise will not be referred to as ‘giant’ again) and the second youngest player in a Blues first team, Nathan Redmond. While Zigic did some good and some bad the youngster certainly took the eye with plenty of pace and trickery.

Zigic needs a goal and should have opened his account with a couple of chances. The worst of these was when another Larsson cross fizzed across the goal und under the Serb’s long legs.

Blues won and are in the draw on Saturday but McLeish will not be any the wiser about these fringe player’s.

Blues (4-4-2): Maik Taylor; Keith Fahey, David Murphy, Scott Dann, Roger Johnson; Enric Valles (Nathan Redmond 76), Lee Bowyer, Michel, James McFadden (Seb Larsson 46); Matt Derbyshire (Nikola Zigic 65), Garry O’Connor.

Subs (not used): Ben Foster, Craig Gardner, Cameron Jerome, Barry Ferguson.

Goals: McFadden (28 pen), Murphy (48), Derbyshire (53)

Dale; (4-4-2): Josh Lillis, Scott Wiseman, Joe Widdowson, Marcus Holness (Josh Thompson 63), Brian Barry-Murphy, Jason Kennedy, Gary Jones, Anthony Elding (Jean-Louis Akpa Akpro 63), Andrew Tutte (Matt Done 63), Chris O’Grady, Craig Dawson.

Subs (from): Matt Edwards, Jack Redshaw, Alan Goodall, Helio Andre.

Goal: Jones (24, 75)

Ref Mike Russell (Apart from the delay with the penalty this bloke was OK)

Attendance: 6,431 (Good crowd considering the TV and the rain)

By Alan Watton

Wigan have accepted an offer from Birmingham for Charles N’Zogbia.

There seems to have been a lot of progress made on the deal since Thursday after Wigan claimed that the offer at that time was lower than our original bid.

Since then it appears as if we have gone back in with a bid of over £8million for the winger, which has been accepted.

A statement on Wigan’s website read: “Wigan Athletic can confirm that they have accepted a much improved offer from Birmingham City for France winger Charles N’Zogbia, which has now met the club’s valuation.

“The player has now been given permission to speak with Birmingham.”

BBC Football pundit Mark Lawrenson has predicted that Birmingham City will lose to Bolton Wanderers on Sunday.

He told BBC Sport Online: “You can see that Owen Coyle is slowly trying to change the way Bolton play, injecting a little more guile into the team. That said, he has recognised that Kevin Davies and Johan Elmander can cause teams all sorts of problems if they’re given a regular supply line from wide areas.

“Birmingham rode their luck against Blackburn last week - if it wasn’t for the form of Ben Foster in goal they would have lost - and it is easy to understand why they’re still active in the transfer market. As it was they turned it around with two goals from Craig Gardner and pinched the win. But I think Bolton at home should have enough to take this one.

“Prediction: 2-0″