Birmingham City manager Lee Bowyer makes Blues transfer admission amidst injury problems

Birmingham City manager Lee Bowyer admits that he and Craig Gardner are assessing the free agent market in a bid to add reinforcements to the squad but are having little luck in finding any positive fits.

With the news that George Friend will be facing a spell of around four weeks on the sidelines with a calf strain, this leaves Blues with just four fit and available senior defenders at the club.

If another goes down over the coming weeks, it could become a real struggle.

There would be worst case scenario options such as playing Jordan Graham and Jeremie Bela at full-back and maybe even having Gary Gardner slot in at centre-back but that really would be scraping the barrel.

Getting a square peg in a square hole would be the ideal but Bowyer claims the free agent market isn’t currently springing any answers his way.

“Yes, we’re looking at it but there’s nothing really standing out at the moment,” he said.

“Obviously we’re looking but there’s nobody here saying ‘come and get me.’

“Let’s not jump too far ahead.

“We’ve got four defenders in the building that are fit and they are strong lads. Obviously if something did happen to them - hopefully it doesn’t, but then that’s a bridge we’d have to cross.

“There’s still a couple of ways or at least another way that I could adjust depending on who I lost if I did lose anyone but I could still adjust to the way we set up.”

A message from the editor:

Thank you for reading. BirminghamWorld is Birmingham’s latest news website, championing everything that is great about our city - reporting on news, lifestyle and sport. We want to start a community among our readers, so please follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and keep the conversation going.