Birmingham City continue the quest to move the Premier League’s success story onwards and upwards cautioned by the plight of football’s crisis clubs.

Seventh-placed Blues are two points ahead of tomorrow’s visitors Everton, after shaking off their FA Cup disappointment with Tuesday’s splendid victory at Portsmouth.

But McLeish recognises that the combination of a global recession along with the collapse of clubs up and down the divisions has brought caution to owner Carson Yeung’s regime.

The Hong Kong-based businessman came into St Andrew’s last year with a bullish pledge of a £40million for new players, which the manager confirms has not been the case.

That has now been replaced by a financial report which revealed a £20million loss for the promotion season and the need for more sober planning when Blues make their plans for a follow-up to this already outstanding campaign.

McLeish said: “I think they have seen mis-management and I think there must be prudence in how we develop from here.

“I feel an obligation and a duty to take Birmingham forward with stability. It’s all very well talking about bringing in £10million players and paying them £100,000 a week, but the owners now agree that’s not the way to go forward.

“Everton’s spending compared to the top four has been miniscule yet David Moyes has done a brilliant job as manager there.

“But they are still able to spend £15million on a player and I can’t do that yet. I think we have to look next to the level Stoke and Fulham, for example, have reached in recent seasons.

“That’s the level we need to get to next.”

McLeish made moves for Roman Pavlyuchenko, Kenwyne Jones and Ryan Babel in January which came to nothing but, had a couple of them been added to the outlay for Michel and Craig Gardner, would have seen the thick end of £30million leaving the St Andrew’s coffers.

Now a more restrained approach is expected this summer although the manager acknowledges it is vital Blues keep pace with their contemporaries.

He said: “Having come in and seen the way it works, having looked at a lot of the situations at other clubs, Portsmouth’s plight for instance, the owners are may be thinking ‘wait a minute’ then could step back and look at things.”

The focus now is to keep the foot firmly on the accelerator and not allow Blues to tail of, having lost sight of Wembley in the FA Cup but with Premier League status all but secure.

That means keeping players such as Cameron Jerome in the exciting form displayed at Portsmouth, which followed some grumbling from fans in the media.

McLeish said: “Cameron has shown he’s got the spirit and the character to show everybody they were wrong. He’s got pace, power and is an instinctive finisher.

“When he’s confident he can beat the best of them as he proved on Tuesday night. He answered the critics in the right way.”