Takeover holds no fear for McLeish

Alex McLeish insists he has “no trepidation” regarding his own future as the Carson Yeung era gets under way at Birmingham and…

Alex McLeish insists he has “no trepidation” regarding his own future as the Carson Yeung era gets under way at Birmingham and is relishing the challenge of working with the Hong Kong businessman.

Yeung has acquired more than 90 per cent of the shares in City via his company, Grandtop International Holdings, and can purchase the remainder of the shares on a compulsory basis.

McLeish is expected to hold talks with Yeung and his advisors at some stage during the international break and is focusing on the positive aspects of the takeover.

He said: “I don’t have any trepidation with the new owners’ takeover. I have not even thought about that side of it.

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“As far as I’m aware, my contract protects me but I am looking at the positive side of it, with the new owners and myself working together.

“I don’t know a lot but that is what makes it a bit exciting. I don’t have any fear.”

Blues have stuttered in recent weeks but McLeish is determined to stay positive about his side’s chances this season.

He said: “This year I don’t want to talk every week about staying up. Even now we’ve got to be more positive.

“I woke up the first morning of pre-season training and my ambition was to win the league but I’ve got to be realistic and then we set different targets.

“It is all relative success. Seventeenth at the moment the way I am thinking would be a great achievement but I want to go higher than that.

“The more points we can get on the board, the better chance we have. We’ve got to look after the here and now and not get too far ahead of ourselves.

“We can’t say it’s just the start of the season. We’ve got to pick up as many points as we can as early as we can and try and climb as high away from the danger zone as we can.”