Birmingham City were one of the clubs who considered signing Mjällby AIF’s Abdoulie Manneh in the winter market.
The Blues came close to bringing him to St Andrew’s, after reaching an agreement with the Swedish club. Their sporting director, Hasse Larsson, had confirmed the deal with Chris Davies’ side.
Manneh made a trip to England to to pursue a move to Birmingham City but didn’t complete the transfer. On January 13th, the director said he was still waiting to find out why.
The forward then stayed in the UK, hoping to join another English club before Monday’s deadline. He wasn’t successful and now has to join Mjällby’s training camp in Portugal. Larsson is concerned about the impact of this failed move on Manneh.
Fotbollskanalen caught up with him in Portugal to discuss the 21-year-old’s failure to join Birmingham City or another English club in the recently concluded window.
England stay after Birmingham City failure didn’t help
This is the latest setback for the player, who saw a move to Olympiacos collapse in the summer. The Allsvenskan official said he hasn’t experienced a similar case so far in his management career.
“I can’t take it anymore. There’s no point,” he said.
According to the official, two unnamed English clubs tried to sign the player on deadline day.
“We haven’t found out the reason for one of them why it didn’t work out, and we couldn’t agree on the financial terms with another,” Larsson explained.
Fotbollskanalen asked if there’d been any issues with Manneh’s medical tests.
“I don’t want to comment on that,” he added.
Mjällby are hoping to find a destination where the transfer window is still open.
“We have to sit down and talk to him. We tend to be pretty good at supporting players, I think. Turkey or MLS or something like that could be a possibility. We are not really keen on Turkey, but if something really serious happens there, it could be a possibility,” he said.
