McLeish sees his future at Birmingham

Birmingham boss Alex McLeish is confident he will be staying at the club with talks underway on renewing his contract.

His current deal still has 12 months to go, but his advisors are already in touch with Blues vice-chairman Peter Pannu.

The former Rangers boss is optimistic the situation will be resolved sooner rather than later.

Former Birmingham manager Trevor Francis has said that McLeish would be "Birmingham's biggest signing" of the summer given his outstanding record during the past two seasons.

The 51-year-old Scotsman led City to promotion from the Championship 12 months ago and then secured a top-10 finish in the Premier League.

"What is the situation with my contract? Peter Pannu has been a little bit busy and my guys (advisors) were a little bit busy before," McLeish said. "But they have made contact now and I'm hoping that something can get done fairly quickly.

"I don't envisage any hold ups. It doesn't matter, I am still contracted for another season anyway.

"Hopefully we will get things tied up."

McLeish laughed off Francis's comments and joked: "I meant to make a public announcement that Trevor is my new agent."

The ex-Scotland coach is stepping up his bid to bring a new striker to St Andrew's and has been linked with a move for Valencia's Nikola Zigic.

"We are making progress in the striking department. We are going to have to be patient," McLeish said.

"I can't divulge any names at this moment but we are making good progress on three or four names."

Birmingham have also been monitoring Wigan's Charles N'Zogbia and reported to have had an 8 million pounds bid rejected.