Robbie exits Birmingham with a savage attack

BLACKBURN’S new £3.1m signing Robbie Savage unleashed a torrent of criticism against Birmingham yesterday and said he will never be able to forgive the club for treating him “like a punch-bag.”

Savage has bitten his tongue during the past fortnight while Birmingham, in particular Blues owner David Sullivan and chairman David Gold, castigated him for his lack of loyalty after he handed in a transfer request.

The 30-year-old was banned from playing or training with the first team and became a hate figure to Birmingham fans.

Savage was unveiled by Blackburn yesterday and used the news conference as an opportunity to hit back at his former club.

He said: "Birmingham were using me like a punch-bag, I was getting knocked from side to side without being able to say anything. I have been getting hammered and I just had to take it.

"To be made to play for the reserves and train with the kids or train on your own when you are 30-years-old, a father, with 300 Premiership games and 40 caps is pretty poor really. I think it went too far and had become personal.

"To treat me the way they did was something I could possibly never forgive them for. The last couple of weeks have been horrible, I have not been eating through all the stress and worry, I have lost about 8lb. I was abused in the street, it was horrible."

Savage also questioned whether Birmingham had any right to criticise him for a lack of loyalty he had signed a new four-year contract in the summer and intimated that their appointment of manager Steve Bruce, who walked out on Crystal Palace in controversial circumstances, was similar.

He added: "People were talking about loyalty but everyone knows what has happened in the past with certain people at Birmingham. I'm not greedy I can categorically state it is not about money. If you were to look at my Birmingham contract and my Blackburn contract they are not a million miles apart and I would let Birmingham make my contract public if they wanted to."

"I want to draw a line under it now. My parents and Mark Hughes were the reason I wanted to move to Blackburn, I'm here now, I have taken a lot of knocks in the past and bounced back and I will bounce back again after this."

Birmingham had tried to insist that Savage would not be allowed to play against them in the penultimate match of the season but this has been blocked by the Premier League.

Meanwhile, Blackburn will speak to their own unsettled midfielder Barry Ferguson on Monday. Rangers have already had one £3m offer rejected and Blackburn, who still owe Rangers £2.5m from the original £6.5m fee insist they want more.