Obafemi Martins faces former club

Birmingham new-boy Obafemi Martins prepares to face his former club Newcastle for the first time insisting he was forced out of the club two years ago.

Martins made his Premier League return with a Blues debut in Saturday's 1-0 win over Stoke, after joining on loan from Russian club Rubin Kazan until the end of the season.

The Nigeria international bid goodbye to England after Newcastle were relegated from the top flight in 2009, signing for German club Wolfsburg for £9million before a move to Russia last summer.

But the 26-year-old, ahead of tonight's game against his former club at St Andrew's, insists he never wanted to leave St James' Park after three happy years on Tyneside.

He said: "The only bad memory we had was when we got relegated. It was normal when I left because they couldn't afford the money, that's why they asked me to go.

"I have good memories of there with the fans and the players. We had good players but things weren't right.

"We kept asking ourselves, 'why are we relegated?' and we don't even know ourselves why we were relegated. We didn't know what was wrong with the team.

"It was definitely the lowest point of my career and it affected me, because when I went to Germany my profile was lower and they knew my team had got relegated.

"It is not a good thing but you have to continue and take pressure. It was painful when we got relegated.

"Just because I left there that wasn't it, it was painful for about six or seven months because I was still thinking about how we got relegated."