Blake signs for Birmingham

By TheLongside.co.uk
January 7 2005

On Wednesday afternoon, Robbie Blake signed for Birmingham City at a fee of 1.25 Million. The striker had been the centre of transfer speculation throughout December.

Blake, who has been at Turf Moor for almost two years, held talks with the Blues and had a medical on Tuesday, the deal was finalised on Wednesday.

In his time here, he scored 51 goals, from 138 appearances (including 18 as a substitute). He becomes Burnley's record outgoing transfer.

Blake didn't make the biggest impact on signing for the Clarets, when he joined in early 2002; he only managed to make one appearance in the latter half of the season through injury problems. In the 02/03 season he played second fiddle to Gareth Taylor but provided great cover for when Gareth was unfit and played well when coming on later in a game as a substitute. This sort of play made him popular with the fans.

After this season had finished, we had sold Taylor to Nottingham Forest and ever since he's proved to the fans how good he is and has become the player he is now.

In the past few months he has been involved in a lot of transfer speculation. Nottingham Forest offered an atrociously low amount of money for his services and Wigan made several improved bids. None of these could entice the club to part with Blake. It was a few weeks ago that Blake then told the press he would like to join Wigan to have a chance of Premiership football.

Premiership football was knocking on the door though. On Boxing Day, rumours about Birmingham wanting the 28 year old emerged, weeks before the Premiership transfer window was about to open.

He has now joined Birmingham City for 1.5 Million and TheLongside.co.uk would like to wish him all the best and thank him for the great goals he scored in his time here.