With the first home game of the season less than 72 hours away the last thing that Birmingham City needed was issues surrounding the distribution of season tickets. Yet despite sending out more than 18,000 digital season tickets on Tuesday evening it appears the club is at a crisis point of its own making.
Marc Leonard became the eighth signing of what seems a very impressive transfer window for Birmingham City on Thursday morning. The 22-year-old Scottish midfielder wrapped up a transfer which had been rumoured for a more than a month to join what appears to be the squad to beat in League One this season.
Birmingham City beat Solihull Moors comfortably 3-0 at the Armco Arena on Wednesday night in the second match of their pre-season programme. Goals from Alfie May, Koji Miyoshi and Lukas Jutkiewicz ensured Blues won the third annual Arthur Cup in front of a busy crowd.
The Daily Mail reported on Monday afternoon that Blues had asked the EFL for permission to play their home League One fixture against Wrexham in America rather than in Birmingham. The report confirmed that the EFL very quickly shot the idea down but that hasn’t stopped a wider discussion of the idea.
Birmingham City announced the first signing of the 2024 summer transfer window on Tuesday afternoon, bringing keeper Ryan Allsop back to his boyhood club from Hull City for an undisclosed fee. After a summer of anticipation is this where the floodgates open?
The last week or so has been incredibly busy for Blues; a new manager has been appointed, season ticket prices have been confirmed and the new first team kit has been launched. While all of this noise is going on in the foreground, the new financial reality of League One continues to govern just what Knighthead and Blues need to do to remain in the black and on the right side of the rules.
On Thursday afternoon Birmingham City announced that they had appointed Chris Davies as First Team Manager on a four-year contract. The announcement ended what felt like an extraordinarily long recruitment process to replace Tony Mowbray, who was forced to step down due to his continuing ill health.
With the football season now over for Birmingham City, the focus has turned to the summer ahead and the challenges to come in the transfer window. Relegation means that Blues have a whole new set of financial rules to comply with which focus on a different methodology of levelling the financial playing field.
After multiple years of circling the plughole, on Saturday afternoon it finally came. Despite winning against Norwich, Blues found themselves relegated after every one of their rivals also pulled a last day win out of the bag. What should have been a summer of excitement for the future ahead has for now become one of suffering brickbats in the media.
Once again, it’s a last day of the season relegation battle for Blues only this time it’s hard mode; starting from the bottom three. A draw with Huddersfield all but condemned the Terriers to relegation but also means that even a win might not be enough for Blues next weekend if the results don’t go right.
