Birmingham City sign Premier League defender and Blackburn gem in risky new January transfer window prediction

Any dreams Blues fans had of Birmingham City pushing for back-to-back promotions this season haven’t come to fruition at least yet, but it’s still been a positive return to the Championship for Chris Davies’ side, who are far from out of the playoff race yet and a big January transfer window could make those dreams a reality.

Championship fans know that the table doesn’t really matter until March unless you’re at the very top or bottom, and any clubs closer to the playoffs than the relegation zone are in contention for the top six if they can put a strong month together in the final stretch of the season.

Blues aren’t even the worst Midlands side in the division as they’re outperforming West Bromwich Albion and are within range to leapfrog Leicester City if The Foxes’ long-awaited points deduction does hit this campaign.

Apart from Coventry City, Middlesbrough and Ipswich Town, all of the teams from Preston North End downwards look capable of falling out of the race which means there are at least three playoff spots up for grabs, and if Birmingham can further strengthen their squad then there’s no reason they can’t be the side to take one of them.

So to see if that’s on the cards, we fired up Football Manager 26 and jumped to February to see what it predicted.

Low-cost wheeling and dealing by Blues

Hannes Delcroix - loan from Burnley - The Haitian has struggled with injuries in the past, and never really convinced successive Burnley managers that he can be trusted in the Premier League. But he was a success on loan at Swansea City in the second half of last season, and appears to have left his worst fitness troubles behind him at Anderlecht.

Only five teams in the Championship have a worse defensive record than Blues and only four of those are genuine second-tier quality sides (with all due respect to Sheffield Wednesday’s desperately difficult situation), so reinforcements at the back will be welcome. Delcroix could become a commanding presence at the back in the run-in.

Sondre Tronstad - £800,000 from Blackburn Rovers - Tronstad’s contract expires this summer and Rovers fans will be extremely sorry to see the Norwegian depart if and when he does leave Ewood Park, which is a pretty good reflection that Birmingham would be getting a quality player.

Blackburn wouldn’t be keen on losing such a pivotal player as they battle relegation but they must balance that against getting some compensation for their stalwart. He’s racked up over a century of appearances for the club and has played almost 75% of possible minutes for the Lancastrian side this season.

Pawel Dawidowicz - free agent - The towering centre-back spent most of his career in Italy and aged only 30 with 17 international caps for Poland, it’s somewhat surprising that he is on the market for free. At the same time, there will be reasons that Europe’s other defensively desperate teams haven’t snapped him up yet but if Blues can agree favourable terms, Dawidowicz is surely worth a punt. He has 139 Serie A appearances to his name and was a mainstay for Hellas Verona.

Lucas Pitt - loan from Liverpool - Even for a 19-year-old, Pitt is pretty inexperienced. He’s never featured in a senior starting XI and he’s yet to be sent out on loan, though he does have over 200 minutes of gametime against adult teams in the EFL Trophy. If Liverpool covered all his contract then this would be a shot to nothing, but there would also be the possibility that he returns to Anfield in the summer having only played a handful of cameos.

Loan exodus the only departure news

Menzi Mazwi - loan to Solihull Moors - FM26 went absolutely wild with its loan departure predictions. None of these players have played a minute for Davies this season and they only share about five appearances as unused subs in the last six months, so it makes sense that they’re given opportunities to go out and express themselves.

Scott Wright is sent on a pretty wild loan to San Jose Earthquakes while Godfred Boakye also gets a move overseas, to RFC Meux in Belgium. Cobi Maddox joins Mazwi at Solihull Moors while George Wynne stays similarly close to hope, switching to Chippenham Town for the remainder of the season.

Also in this prediction, Alezandro Da Silva moves to Farnborough, William O’Sullivan to Enfield Town, Zach Willis to Horsham, O’Shea Ellis to Guiseley and Trae Briscoe to Worthing.