Birmingham chairman David Gold insists manager Alex McLeish retains the faith of the board despite the club's precarious position.Blues were pushed to the brink of relegation from the Premier League with yesterday's 2-0 defeat by Fulham, increasing the pressure on McLeish.

McLeish replaced Steve Bruce - who has subsequently steered Wigan to safety - last November but Gold vowed he will not be sacked even if Birmingham go down.

"If Birmingham are relegated we will stick with Alex," he told BBC Five Live's Sportsweek.

"The tradition of Birmingham is that in the board's 16 years in charge we've only fired two managers.

"We have great faith and believe in Alex and his backroom staff."

Gold believes Birmingham's board must share the blame for the club's impending relegation - they must defeat Blackburn next Sunday to have any hope of staying up.

He admits mistakes were made during Carson Yeung's failed takeover and insists the club will be far more cautious when approached by potential buyers in the future.

"We couldn't hang on to Steve Bruce. We needed to enhance his contact and the takeover board refused permission to do that," he said.

"There's no doubt the board made mistakes in allowing the takeover to take three months to collapse.

"Had we realised earlier that it was going to collapse we could have acted.

"Now we would only sell the club to a seriously wealthy potential owner who is capable of taking it further.

"We would want an owner who can challenge the top six otherwise there's no point changing. But we're not actively looking."

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