Premiership Winners:

Premiership Relegation:

Championship Winners:

League One Winners:

League Two Winners:

Where Blues Finish and How The Season Fairs:

In the end a comfortable victory for England we had one or two dodgy moments but Joe made a couple of decent saves,but Bulgaria didn't help themselves with some abysmal defending for the first goal and the keeper should have saved the third with some ease,but its three points in the bag though next Tuesday's match v the Swiss will be a more testing examination.
K.R.O.

This scenario has now been going on for quite some time now and there does appear to be a 'difference of interpretation' over the stage the talks are at given the comments in today's B'ham Mail : ''AM said at the Tuesday's BRMB forum that his lawyers would be talking to Peter Pannu imminently in all likelihood, to bring an end to the episode once and for all.....however Peter Pannu claimed McLeish was 'asking for a large amount of money which I was not prepared to meet''...yesterday Alex said ''I don't want to talk about my contract publicly'''.....preferring to talk about the transfer deadline signings,and said 'that's what I'm here to talk about the players' ..!
It's clearly evident that there are issues that need to be addressed on both sides and lets hope by the time our next game rolls round they would have been negotiated successfully..!!
K.R.O.

Blues, like all other clubs, have to name their 25-man squad for the first half of the season by 17:00 tomorrow, 1st September.

I reckon the 25 will shape uplike this:

Ben Foster
Maik Taylor
Colin Doyle
Stephen Carr
Stuart Parnaby
Liam Ridgewell
Roger Johnson
Scott Dann
Martin Jiraneck
David Murphy
Barry Ferguson
Lee Bowyer
Craig Gardner
Michel
Seb Larsson
James McFadden
Enric Valles
Keith Fahey
Alex Hleb
Jean Beausejour
Nikola Zigic
Matt Derbyshire
Kevin Phillips
Cameron Jerome
Garry O'Connor


Now you can understand why Alex McLeish was forced, reluctantly, to let Marcus Bent go to the dogs: we just didn't have a space for him in the squad!

Dear Alex

I wish to profer my hreartfelt apologies for doubting your ability to make deadline day signings after the collapse of the N'Zogbia deal.
I genuinely felt that your careful nature would lead you to shy away from making any deals that hadn't undergone your full 'due diligence' preparatory exploration.
Furthermore, I questioned whether you would still have choices on your list when deals for Cacau, Miccoli, Dembele, Camoranesi, N'Zogbia (plus any others that I've forgotten about!) had failed to come to fruition.
Clearly, you did have Plan D, E, F and beyond, and presumably your improved scouting network had done their homework on a whole range of players that none of us had even considered!
Only time will tell whether the players you have brought to the Club will succeed in 'taking us to the next level', but I have to say that tonight I am proud to be a bluenose, and am looking forward with great anticipation to seeing the new boys in action at the earliest opportunity.
Critics will say that we should have signed a 'recognised' left-back, and that we will pay the price for not having signed a prolific goalscorer!
Experience has taught me that in this life we can't always have everything just as and when we'd like it. Anyway, I've long believed that the dearth of goals scored was as much about the lack of creativity in midfield as the inadequacies of the front-men. I have a sneaking suspicion that in Hleb and Beausejour you might just have solved the thorny question of creativity!
It has been good to be trying to sign players from a lofty position nearer the top than the bottom of the Premier League, and that, coupled with last season's amazing achievements, must have made it easier to persuade quality players to join The Blues.

Well done to you, to your staff, and to the Club's (relatively) new owners who seem to have backed you with admirable support!

Keep Right On
Jim