Former Birmingham City and Aston Villa boss Alex McLeish has revealed how he nearly signed Victor Wanyama.
McLeish- whom the BBC allege received a £1.7m EBT from Rangers- was also on the trail of Axel Witsel who was transferred from Benfica to Zenit St Petersburg for £35m on Monday.
During his time as Rangers manager McLeish almost signed Lionel Messi on loan from Barcelona with his near misses continuing after he moved south of the border to Birmingham.
“A couple of years ago when I was at Birmingham we knew all about Eden Hazard,” McLeish told The Sun. “Even though he was out of our price range.
“But I spent a lot of time going back and forward to Belgium to look at players. I saw the Belgian play-offs and saw Axel Witsel playing for Standard Liege long before he joined Benfica. Now he’s gone to Zenit St Petersburg for £32million.
“The Serb Milan Jovanovic was another Standard player we got close to bringing to Britain.
“I spoke to him and his agent about coming to Birmingham, but he went to Liverpool, where it didn’t really work out, and he’s back at Anderlecht now.
“But the most galling of the lot was Moussa Dembele.
“I spoke to Dick Advocaat about him. Dick was his coach for Belgium and had seen a lot of him when he played in Holland.
“His exact words to me were ‘Alex, if you can get him for between £3m and £5m, I’d take him blind’.
“I drove Dembele’s agent, a guy called Rodger Linse, to the station. We had a long discussion about how a move to a club like Birmingham would be perfect for him because it would give him a platform, with the possibility of moving on in the future.
“Everything seemed set and I thought we had Dembele, but we were gazumped by Fulham and he went there.
“I know he’s not Belgian, but we also spoke to Beerschot about Wanyama at that time.
“His agent was desperate to get him to us and we’d have got him if we hadn’t been relegated.”
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Awwww such incredible bad luck Eck….there again it could be described as sheer incompetence not ensuring these “deals” were clinched.
Can I claim to have seen Van Der Vaart & Wesley Schneijder as I watched them both playing as youngsters for Ajax ?? Or indeed a young Samuel Etoo terrorising Barcelona before Celtic’s big night in Seville.
Somehow I think a lot more clubs all over Europe were aware of such talent – not just Birmingham. Sounds like you are trying to push your claims by showing that you have a comprehensive knowledge of young talent in Europe / great contacts.
Money getting tight Eck, scared HMRC will come knocking on your door for unpaid tax LOL. Phone not ringing, maybe try paying your bills …
aye sure yi did Eck ya useless plank. Worst Scottish manager of all time. Complete opposite of the “Midas” touch, everything you touch turns to shecht!!
Anyhow, if they’re good enough, they’re old enough, let see how many of Lennon’s young diamonds in the rough turn to crown jewels. I’m betting quite a few of them!
HH 1NL YNWA
I almost won the lottery but the numbers I chose weren’t right even tho I was confident they were winners!
Hahaahahahahaaha
What a wonderful eye for spotting talent. Why, then, did you actually end up signing donkeys like Musat, Rae x2, Vignal, Andrews, Zigic.
There are many many more I could list, if I could be bothered, truth is, you like talking about other club’s talent while you’ve squandered money on rubbish.
Retrospective scouting, can’t go wrong.
What an embarrassing outburst! Trying to convince himself he is a decent manager. Eck, the simple fact is that at RFC you were given preferential treatment from the referees and your brothers in the SPL and SFA. You are a useless football manager, and just like uncle walter you have been exposed without the corruption in Scotland to give you an advantage.
Must have been watching the South Park episode about Captain Hindsight, who had three side-kicks: Coulda, Woulda and Shoulda.
Maybe he was offering all these players EBT deals and the agents wanted guarantees – ie, side contract letters. After all, he knew how they worked, eh? Oh…
Aw shoosh eck ya failure…
Maybe if he had had a bit of luck in signing all these players then Birmingers would have 3 premiership titles, a couple of CL cups in the trophy room and about 300 million in transfer fees once the players wanted out for realising what a twat he is!
But then again, McLeish has a habbit of inheriting decent players and turning them into planks of wood sooo the most likely scenario would be that he kills the players stock value, relegates the club and plunges the club into financial despair all because someone on the board heard and trusted he was a manager….
Scottish ginger judas t**t!
I wonder, would this be the same Linoel Messi that labelled Walter Smith’s rangers as a team who plays “anti-football”? yes, we all believe that that ld club which used to be known as rangers was a dream move for Messi which never quite materialized!
Reading this garbage sure let’s you see why mcleish has failed everywhere. For some strange reason reality escapes him. mcleish will always be a failure, and a cheat who took part in the illegal ebt scheme that old club whcih used to be known as rangers used to cheat the football world as long as he fails to accept his misgivings and cheating ways. Long may it continue.
Therefore, he is absolutely hopeless at getting the right sort of player into the clubs he manages. Why would any club employ this clown. I nearly signed every decent player in europe but had to sign others who subsequently got one club relegated and almost relegated another. What a trumpet.
you can just see big eck as the panto dame later in the year !!
but onto more important issues, i’m in for Kelly Brook and Kim Kardashian , both on loan ! i ‘ll give them back , honest :-p
Well, he almost did this, then the other! he actually managed to take us down twice. The League Rangers are in now is your level Alex. May be they will let you be the ball boy!
What a plonker!
I guess they never offered the corrupt ebt to Messi.
What a dreamer!
Think he’s been playing football manager
So U would have got Wanyama if u would not have been relegated?
But u were relagated – and deservedly so.
Don’t talk about relagation as a piece of bad luck,a misfortune.
The fans disliked u,your team didn’t play well enough – and your limitations have been exposed.
You could have been a contender – if it wasn’t for relagation.
Relegation
What a stoopid rule eh big Eck!!