Birmingham must rue signing flop who Clotet dubbed “superb” when he joined

Birmingham City‘s summer transfer window before the new League One season kicked off couldn’t have really gone any better, as plenty of deadwood was shifted on and a whole host of exciting gems were snapped up.

In total, there were a mammoth 17 incomings for Chris Davies to contend with, which included the dramatic return of Jay Stansfield to St. Andrew’s, alongside bold additions in the form of Tomoki Iwata and Willum Thor Willumsson.

All of those signings named have made the transition to the third tier look easy for the most part – with Stansfield bagging ten goals from 13 league clashes – but the Blues haven’t always been blessed with amazing luck when it comes to striking gold in the transfer department.

Birmingham’s biggest transfer howlers

Every club up and down England is going to fall foul of some blunders when a window swings open, with Birmingham no exception to that rule whatsoever.

After all, Blues fans will still be haunted by the fact their club splashed out £2m on Sam Cosgrove back in 2021, only for the ex-Aberdeen man to flounder horrifically in his new location with zero goals tallied up from 17 dire appearances.

That isn’t the only time Birmingham have signed a striker who would then never live up to their hype, with Scott Hogan once a £12m

buy for Aston Villa before joining their arch rivals, only for him now to be playing in League Two after bagging a lacklustre 36 strikes from 158 clashes.

There are no doubt more flops that have gone on to notably struggle at St. Andrew’s away from just these two strikers, with this player in question one that did shine in spurts in the West Midlands, but would again never feel worthy of his excessive fee.

Sunjic’s time at Birmingham

Whilst not as extortionate as the mentioned Hogan deal, Ivan Sunjic would still cost a whopping £6.3m to obtain in the summer of 2019, with plenty then expected of the midfielder on his flashy arrival.

He would end up amassing 176 appearances in England, as his first season saw him score three times from 40 league games whilst his new employers just about survived in the Championship, which included this beauty of a strike being hammered home versus Derby County.

Yet, Birmingham fans would have been left wanting more from the Bosnia and Herzegovina international as his stay dragged on at the club, as Sunjic would end up accumulating just three more goals and six assists across the following three campaigns.

Labelled as “superb” by then Birmingham manager Pep Clotet during his first few months at the club, there will have been a disappointment in the air when the 28-year-old was just allowed to depart for nothing in the summer.

But, it did feel unlikely that Davies would want to keep the former £6.3m buy around, especially as he went about freshening up the camp for the more combative challenge of League One football.

He has since made the switch to Cyprus to line up for Pafos FC, who actually play in the Europa Conference League, with Sunjic showing off signs of his class for his new employers so far in league action.

Whilst Sunjic aims to build on a promising start to life out in Cyprus, Davies will just be content with the options he has back in England in the midfield positions, feeling little to no regret that he can’t call upon the ex-Blues number 34.

Birmingham did used to fail in the market very frequently when it came to high-profile signings underwhelming, but in the here and now with Stansfield and many others, that narrative is changing.