In recent times, when Birmingham City’s owner has appeared on the front page of the Financial Times it’s been as the harbinger of bad news. However, times have changed since Shelby Companies Limited have taken charge at St Andrew’s and Tom Wagner’s picture on the front of the FT was all about Blues challenging the authorities for the right reasons.
Despite the unbeaten start to the league season for Blues, rumours broke on Thursday afternoon that the club have identified Wayne Rooney as a replacement for John Eustace as Head Coach.
On Tuesday evening Blues finally released season ticket prices for the 2023/24 Championship season in what will eventually be a fully reopened St Andrew’s stadium. As to be expected after a price rise there has been a lot of talk on social media about ticket prices, especially considering the cost-of-living crisis many are going through.
A tweet from Fabrizio Romano suggesting that young Blues midfielder Jobe Bellingham is to make the move north to Sunderland set Blues social media alight on Thursday. The tweet reported a fee of £3M was agreed and a medical was to be done in the next ten days.
While the work on the pitch is now done for the season, the work is now very much underway for Technical Director Craig Gardner and his recruitment team. The next few months are going to be crucial in getting a squad together which can offer the same positivity on the pitch the Shelby Companies takeover is offering off of it.
While the season drags to a rather unsatisfactory finish on the pitch, discussions surrounding the make-up of the Blues squad next year are springing up around on social media and forums. Much of this talk has centred on the fates of some of the younger members of the squad thanks to transfer rumours in the newspapers among other things.
With the season now winding to an end many fans are already thinking about player recruitment this summer. Despite some of the larger player contracts coming to an end, budget constraints are going to make life interesting for John Eustace, Craig Gardner and the rest of recruitment team at St Andrew’s.
In the fourth and final part of my deep dive into the Birmingham City squad, I’ve taken a look at the remainder of first team squad, along with young pros who are without a squad number. This is a tough time of year for many of these players as they will be wondering if they have a future at the club.
A hard fought 1-0 victory against Blackburn Rovers on Saturday pushed Birmingham City into 16th place in the Championship, nine points clear of the relegation zone with just seven games left to play. While safety isn’t yet mathematically assured it looks increasingly likely that John Eustace’s team will have a much more relaxed run in than in recent years.
In the third part of my deep dive into the Birmingham City squad, I’ve taken a look at players with the squad numbers 26 to 38. Among these players are a few notable players who are out of contract at the end of this season, with big decisions needing to be made about who will stay and who will go.
