When Birmingham City shockingly got relegated from the Championship last season, after being inside the top 6 for multiple weeks, many people and pundits thought that they were the team to beat in League One and haven’t they shown it since then! Birmingham City were promoted from League One when they travelled Eastwards to face Peterborough United; who they face in this season’s Vertu Trophy final this weekend.
It is safe to say that Birmingham City have absolutely dominated League One this season, breaking records and still could break multiple more. Let’s look at how the Blues’ season has progressed.
The Early Months
Birmingham needed many changes over the summer. Firstly, Wayne Rooney left the club which perhaps should’ve happened months prior as the club went spiralling down the Championship table after his arrival. In came Chris Davies, someone who hadn’t managed a team before but has had vast experience at being second fiddle to some. Chris was an assistant manager at Swansea City, Liverpool, Celtic and Leicester City working alongside Brendan Rodgers. He most recently was Tottenham’s assistant manager last season. Now that Birmingham had found their leader, they needed a shake up in their squad.
The club haven’t shied away from spending money this season, with the club spending a record amount in total, record amount on a single player and having the highest 3 transfer fees spent in League One history. Having said that, some of their transfer business has been immaculate. For example, bringing in Tomoki Iwata, who has been one of the standout players in the league, from Celtic for just under £1m and prolific goal scorer Alfie May for a similar figure.
The club have also made some unbelievable loan signings too, central defender Ben Davies from Rangers who featured 6 times last season in the Europa League and Fulham youngster Luke Harris who impressed massively last season at Exeter City. Although the club has also spent some absurd amount of money too! There have been 6 transfers brought in which the club has spent a minimum of 7-figures for. Alex Cochrane, Lyndon Dykes and Emil Hansson all came in with fees reported to be in the region of £1m – £2m. The Icelandic man Willum Willumsson arrived from Go Ahead Eagles for approximately £4m, Austrian defender Christoph Klarer for the same fee and deadline day signing Jay Stansfield for a staggering reported fee of £15m!
The summer arrivals got to work quickly. Birmingham started the league season 8 games unbeaten, including massive wins away at Wycombe Wanderers and at home against Wrexham. Their first league defeat came at the hands of Charlton Athletic at The Valley, a Matty Godden goal separated the sides in London. It took until the end of November for the next defeat against Shrewsbury Town under Gareth Ainsworth who took charge of the Shrews for the first time. 6 wins from the next 7 games meant that Birmingham were second, level on points with Wycombe as we entered 2025.
The 2025 Look
Since the turn of the year, Blues have been incredible only losing twice in all competitions, Bolton Wanderers in the league and Newcastle United in the FA Cup. In this time, Birmingham remain unbeaten at home in the league picking up 57 points from a possible 63 which is staggering! The Blues haven’t dropped a point at home since drawing 0-0 to Blackpool in December meaning they have won 10 home matches in a row. As mentioned earlier, the club will play Peterborough United in the Vertu Trophy final for a chance at a league and cup double. Birmingham have had to defeat Exeter City, Swindon Town, Stevenage and Bradford City in the knock-out rounds to make it to Wembley.
At the time of writing this Birmingham have six games remaining and sit on 95 points. Second placed Wrexham have one less game to play and have 81 points. If Wrexham don’t beat Wigan away from home on Saturday, then the title is theirs.
Birmingham City are travelling down to Wembley for the somewhat inferior Vertu Trophy Final on Sunday. If they win then surely this would be the first time a club has won two trophies in one weekend?
How Have Birmingham Achieved Greatness This Season?
It has felt inevitable that Birmingham would be going back to the Championship for weeks now. Teams over the years have found it difficult to return to the second tier following relegation. Over the last 5 seasons Charlton, Wigan, Wycombe, Peterborough, Barnsley, Blackpool and Reading have all failed to get back into the Championship which proves how tough it is to win promotion in League One.
Over the last couple of months Birmingham have been playing with a back 4 with Alex Cochrane, Ben Davies, Christoph Klarer and Ethan Laird’s spots being cemented there is normally 2 platers sitting in front of the defence, Tomoki Iwata is one of the first names on the team sheet for Blues and has revolutionised their midfield. Either Seung-Ho Paik or Marc Leonard have been getting the nod alongside Iwata. Iwata has a presence about him in the middle of the park, he controls the pace of the match every time he plays. Then they have 3 just behind the number 9 up top. Keshi Anderson and Kieran Dowell play out wide with Willum Willumsson playing as the number 10. Then the main man Jay Stansfield has been featuring up front. Stansfield has scored 18 league goals this season which averages out at a goal every 127 minutes.
This team certainly will not look out of place in the Championship. Most of the squad is young age spectrum as well or at the age where they should be hitting their peak. Stansfield (22), Willumsson (26), Leonard (23), Gardner-Hickman (23), Laird (23), Klarer (24) and Cochrane (24) are all players who would be seen to be at an age where they still have improvement to come. Bielik (27), Anderson (29), Iwata (28), Paik (28), May (31), Dykes (29) are all players who would be classified as in their prime years with most of them still improving as players.
You do have to say that the squad Birmingham City have is too good for League One, but Chris Davies has still done a great job at Birmingham. You could look at Davies’ past clubs that he has been an assistant at and the managers he has worked under and see how he has implemented that into his own system. Brendan Rodgers has been successful at each club he has worked at alongside Davies. It appears that Rodgers has been a great mentor for him.
Most recently working with Ange Postecoglou whose style is known to out-scoring your opponent, you can see how Davies has a blend of both Postecoglou and Rodgers’ style and developed that into his own. He has been highly successful so far at Birmingham and with the backing of the owner, there is no reason why Birmingham can’t be looking at potential play-off positions next season in the Championship or potentially do what Ipswich did last season and win back-to-back promotions.
