Birmingham end Samaras interest

Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish has abandoned plans to sign Manchester City striker Georgios Samaras.
But McLeish has decided to concentrate on trying to strengthen other areas of his team after signing James McFadden from Everton and Mauro Zarate on loan from Al Sadd.

>>The Telegraph.

This was a move that was first mooted at the beginning of the transfer, but never got to more than the 'reported' stage but it seems now there was definite interest with even a fee of £2.5 million agreed for the player between the clubs, buy McLeish lamented the fact that matters had dragged on too long for his liking:

"Time has just run on with the Samaras one," said McLeish. "I had identified the big guy as a target five or six weeks ago and if I could have done it then, it would have been different. But things have dragged on and other people became available. McFadden became available, Zarate was an unexpected opportunity, therefore it created a problem with the Samaras one."

It is somewhat of a surprise that we would have stalled matters at our end (as McLeish inferred) given that Sven has said he would allow Samaras to depart if a suitable offer was made, and it is even a bigger surprise to me that McLeish would think Samaras as the sort of player he needs for a relegation scrap - and to compound matters then go and sign James McFadden for more than twice the amount agreed for Samaras.