Gold knew takeover collapse

David Gold has admitted he had a feeling that Carson Yeung's potential takeover of the club was destined to fall out. Yeung bought his initial 29.9% stake in the club in July for £15million with a view to completing a full buy-out by the end of the year.

Gold said: "We have been making contingency plans that the takeover would fail for several weeks and myself and David Sullivan have been running the club on that basis.

"Of course, there was always the chance someone could walk into our offices on December 21, the deadline we gave Mr Yeung to complete the deal, with the money to buy the club.

"But in reality we have been saying for some time that the deal was dead in the water to all intents and purposes.

"A few weeks ago I was saying I was 90% certain it would go ahead but my confidence in the takeover going ahead gradually got less and less.

"The silence has been deafening from Hong Kong. Our dealings with Carson Yeung have been very brief. The takeover became an irritation we wanted cleared up.

"It has all caused so much uncertainty and, in part at least, cost us our manager in Steve Bruce although we are more than pleased with his replacement Alex McLeish."

Gold admits he was an unwilling seller and is keen to press on as Blues chairman. He has already hinted he may be willing to buy back the 29.9% stake Yeung owns in the club.

He said: "I feel revitalised and rechallenged now. The future strikes me as exciting for Birmingham. There is a new manager in place, a new era and I want to be part of it."