As reported exclusively by Mike Keegan of the Daily Mail, Birmingham City are in talks with Southampton for centre midfielder William Smallbone. This comes after Wrexham had been previously linked with a £7.5M deal for the Republic of Ireland international before Coventry City captain Ben Sheaf was signed for six and a half million pounds by the Welsh club.
This leaves an open race for the 25-year-old as there seems to be no other clubs in the running. A loan deal would be the most likely deal at this stage with not long left to go.
Smallbone is allowed to leave the club in search for more gametime, having only made six league starts last season for the Saints in the Premier League as they finished bottom after an extremely disappointing season which saw the club go through three different managers, but none of them were able to stop the Saints from finishing with the worst attack and worst defence in the league.
Smallbone has spent all of his senior career at Southampton, making his professional debut in a 2-0 win against Huddersfield Town, where he scored the opening goal. He went on to make 10 appearances that season. He was very unfortunate the following season, as he suffered an ACL injury, ruling him out for an extended period.
He only made 7 appearances the following season, as he returned from injury and struggled for gametime. He spent the 2022/23 season on loan at Stoke City, where he managed to get consistent gametime in the Championship, making 46 appearances in all competitions.
He then returned to the Championship after Southampton got relegated and he played a crucial part in helping to get them promoted back to the Premier League. He then fell down the pecking order last season as Southampton signed reinforcements.
