Birmingham City are continuing to splash the cash as they attempt to return to the Premier League for the first time since the 2010-11 season.
Since relegation occurred all the way back in 2011, the Blues have been regularly put through the wringer, with just one playoff finish in the second tier, then being followed up by many a below-par finish in the Championship, and even a further relegation down to League One.
Now, however, they look to be a club firmly on the up again, with Chris Davies’ ambitious outfit sat just five points off the elusive top six in the Championship at the time of writing, having picked up an impressive three victories from their last five league clashes.
Davies was also very much backed in January, as an outside playoff push looks to be on the cards, with the likes of August Priske joining the building for a whopping £7m.
Why Birmingham spent big on Priske
Already, the raft of January signings that arrived at St. Andrew’s recently have made their presence known.
Indeed, last time out away at Oxford United, Carlos Vicente – who cost an equally eye-catching £6m – would skillfully lay it off to Marvin Ducksch to clinch a 2-0 win, to immediately show off his ex-La Liga pedigree.
Priske was also front and centre of the quick, snappy build-up play at the Kassam, with goals hopefully flowing from the Danish sensation very soon, to back up his hefty price tag.
After all, last year, when plying his trade for Djurgårdens IF, the 6-foot-5 forward would power home a devastatingly clinical 18 goals from 27 league appearances.
Staggeringly, the lofty powerhouse is only 21 years old, too, with Davies perhaps getting even more out of him at St. Andrew’s in time.
Splashing the big bucks on exciting attackers isn’t unique to Birmingham’s journey right now, though, with one attacker still stealing the headlines in the West Midlands, who is worth way more than Priske’s steep £7m valuation.
The Birmingham “monster” worth more than Priske
Priske’s arrival at St. Andrew’s for £7m sees him narrowly miss out on a place among the Championship’s most expensive signings, with the Blues no doubt preparing to spend big in the future, once more, to make their Premier League dreams a reality.
Back in League One, they audaciously spent £15m just on Jay Stansfield, and that mega-money move continues to look cash well spent, with the ex-Fulham man still a talisman Davies can rely on, even with all this influx of fresh blood to the West Midlands.
|
Stansfield’s goalscoring record under Davies |
||
|---|---|---|
|
Stat |
Stansfield (24/25) |
Stansfield (25/26) |
|
Games played |
44 |
30 |
|
Minutes played |
3172 mins |
2342 mins |
|
Goals scored |
23 |
9 |
|
Assists |
3 |
5 |
|
Sourced by Transfermarkt |
||
Across two seasons as one of Davies’ main men in attack, Stansfield has managed to power home a lethal 32 strikes in all competitions, with pundit Carlton Palmer right to dub the 23-year-old as a “monster” up top for his high-flying team.
This has done his valuation no harm, with Football Transfers now estimating that Stansfield is worth a high £18m, which is a crazy £11m more than Priske’s much-talked-about fee and £3m more than they initially spent on his services.
In time, the brand-new number 29 will hope he can be worth the same excessive millions, with it being abundantly clear from his red-hot record in Denmark, that he has the same goalscoring chops as his English counterpart.
It will just depend on whether he can fire home the same number of goals in the Championship, which is known to be a brutally unforgiving league.
The Dane will hope he can go on to be as successful and as feared as his now £18m-rated teammate, with Stansfield no doubt viewed as the cream of the crop in the second tier, having also been lauded as being “worth every penny” back in December by reporter Brian Dick.
Blues flop looks finished at Birmingham City after the Vicente signing
This Birmingham City flop must be completely finished after the signing of Carlos Vicente.
