The Money Is There - Pannu

Last updated : 03 February 2010 By Brian Cartlidge

Pannu has explained why he thinks Blues failed in their attempts to sign a couple of 'big name' strikers before the window closed on Monday evening.

"It was not particularly helpful that our president indicated a desire to buy players in January and spend some money," Pannu told The Guardian.

"I think that raised expectations among the clubs that we approached. But, having said that, Carson stuck to his word and executed what he promised.

"The other side just shied away. We would have had Roman Pavlyuchenko if Spurs had not backed off from the original agreement.

"With Pavlyuchenko we managed to negotiate down from £13m to £10m but when we put in a written bid we were told after three days of negotiations that he was not available for sale at £15m.

"If they had told us that at the beginning we would have moved on to some other strikers. When we were trying to sign Kuranyi his wages doubled in the course of the discussions. His salary was supposed to be gross and the agent changed it into net.

"The money is there. We have every support possible from Carson. There is no problem there. The problem we have is the way some of these clubs have behaved. We have been messed around.

"But I don't want to sound like I'm criticising anybody. I think this is the business. And we know that January is not a very good time to buy."