Finance expert weighs in on West Brom takeover situation amid pre-Birmingham City Jamie Vardy injury update

It proved to be a positive week for both of Birmingham's Championship clubs, with Birmingham City securing a hard-fought three points away to Cardiff City and West Brom defeating Rotherham United. The two sides have put together differing starts so far, but both go into this weekend with plenty of confidence.

The Baggies are now in fifth place and hoping to solidify their top six spot against Stoke City this weekend, while Wayne Rooney's Blues face a tough task to move up from 16th, facing leaders Leicester City. In the meantime, we have rounded up the latest surrounding both clubs.

Maguire on possible West Brom takeover

Finance expert Kieran Maguire has been speaking about the potential takeover at West Brom. “John Percy reported this in the Telegraph, and also Ali Jones of Action for Albion, he and I are in regular contact,” said Maguire, via the Price of Football podcast. “John Percy was reporting that progress has been made with regards to a sale of the club.

“We spoke a couple of weeks ago that West Brom have actually taken out another loan from MSD Holdings and my view at the time would be that MSD Holdings probably would only lend if they were confident that a deal was going to go through because otherwise how are they going to get their money back?

“So it will bring a bit of peace and tranquility into the minds of many Baggies fans. We know that the club has been through a pretty rocky period since Jeremy Peace bought and then sold his investment, and moved to Jersey. There’s been a number of lenders who, they’re okay, but these specific lenders they aren’t football fans.

“They’re not interested in the long-term sustainability of West Bromwich Albion, they're looking to get a financial return. So if there are new owners coming in, I think there’s two or three interested parties, one would presume that we’d move to a period of exclusivity with regards to one of them and then we move on from there with new owners. Clearly the existing owner Guochuan Lai hasn’t worked out."

Leicester injury latest

Leicester City boss Enzo Maresca has confirmed that Jamie Vardy will miss out on this weekend's clash with Blues. “Jamie, I think he needs some days,” Maresca said on Wednesday “Kele (Iheanacho) is alright, he can be for the next one.

“Yunus could be for the next one or not. Callum is very close. Harry was ill, so he can be fine for the next one. Marc Albrighton had a kick in his knee, so we don’t know for Monday. Probably for Monday, the only one is Kele. The rest are going to struggle.”