Birmingham City's blockbuster £6m January transfer window predicted - including Chelsea and Arsenal deals
Birmingham City look set for a hectic month, as they look to make the most of the January transfer window
January is finally upon us, and that means a few things - doomed gym memberships, the end of eating chocolate for breakfast, and the January transfer window. Until the end of the month, clubs in England and beyond will have the opportunity to buy and sell players, as they look to head into the second half of the campaign with all the tools they need to finish the season on a high.
As things stand, Birmingham City are sitting top of the League One table, just about holding off documentary enthusiasts Wrexham AFC. The Blues raised eyebrows across the EFL with an enormous overhaul of their playing squad last summer, signing no fewer than 14 new players and bringing four more in on loan.
The Blues have wasted no time twiddling their thumbs this month either, getting a deal over the line for summer target Phil Neumann. The highly-rated right-back joined the club from German Bundesliga 2 outfit Hannover 96, in a landmark move that saw Birmingham beat a number of top tier German sides to complete the coup.
Meanwhile, promising young talent Brandon Khela has made a move on loan to League Two club Bradford for the rest of the 2024/25 season.
As Birmingham fans wait with eager anticipation to see who else could be heading to St. Andrew's this month, we loaded up the latest edition of Football Manager, and ran a simulation to predict every player the club would sign between now and the end of the January.
Which players did Football Manager predict Birmingham would sign?
We wound the clocks back to January 1st for this sim, giving the virtual Tom Wagner and co a whole month to be let loose on the window. As soon as the final strains of 'Auld Lang Syne' rang out across the nation, the Blues were straight on the phone to the agent of ex-West Ham United striker Simeone Zaza.
Now, full disclosure - we have hunted every corner of the internet to determine where on earth Zaza currently is. He left Torino in the summer of 2022, and is yet to resurface at a new club. Presumably the virtual Birmingham City have 'a guy' for tasks like hunting down missing people, as they managed to track down the ex-Italy international and make him their first signing of the window. A rather wonderful, if bizarre piece of business to get the window underway.
After all the #Zazamania quietened down, Birmingham laid out their first transfer fee of the window, spending a cool £2m to land veteran defender Jorge Pulido from La Liga side Huesca. The 33-year-old has played all of his career in Spain to date (bar a brief, forgetable stint in Belgium) and was a Copa Del Rey with Atletico Madrid back in 2013. He barely played a game, mind you.
A fee of £90k was enough to persuade Middlesbrough to part company with 32-year-old Tommy Smith, as the Blues continued their relentless recruitment drive for those north of thirty. He's been out of action for over a year due to an Achilles injury, hence his bargain fee.
As the middle of the month arrived, Birmingham's transfer war room went into overdrive, bringing in another three signings in the space of as many days. First, quite spectacularly, came Alfie Gilchrist on loan from Chelsea. He's featured heavily in the Sheffield United's push for promotion back to the Premier League this season, but the Blades opted to send him back to the Blues after signing Adam Webster from Brighton for £20m. Gilchrist was dispatched, willingly you would hope, to St Andrew's for the remainder of the campaign.
What business did the Blues do on Deadline Day?
A period of relative calmness followed, with new the Blues recruits getting to know their teammates and the relentless churn of January fixtures seeing the side pushed to their limits. Then came Deadline Day.
The Sky Sports News presenters had barely time to button their bright yellow Deadline Day blazers before Arsenal striker Nathan Butler-Oyedeji strolled through the St. Andrew's gates, signing on the dotted line after a £135k bid was enough to convince the Gunners to part company with the highly-rated youngster. In the real world, he was on the bench for the Gunners’ 1-1 draw with Brighton last weekend.
As the clock continued to tick down, murmurs began to grow of further arrivals. Cryptic social media posts from the Birmingham account came thick and fast, before a real curveball arrived in the shape of 36-year-old goalkeeper Alexandre Oukidja. Not exactly 'one for the future' but an experienced top tier stopper can't be sniffed at.
The Blues were determined to finish the window with a flourish, and they did just that, bringing in Achraf Dari from Saudi Pro League side Al Ahly for £2.5m. The defender, who scored for Morocco in their excellent 2022 World Cup run in Qatar, signed on a statement-making four-year-deal.
Change clearly still in the owner's pocket, one final deal went through just before the deadline - a £1.5m swoop for journeyman striker Crisitan Buonaiuto. The 32-year-old (how much experience does one side need exactly?) cheerfully put pen to paper on a two-year deal, and vowed to improve on his current, rather worrying, tally of eleven goals in 108 appearances for the Serie B side.
So there we have it - Birmingham City's January transfer window has been predicted. Now we're off to begin work on the documentary to find out where exactly Simeone Zaza has actually got to since leaving Torino.