From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Everything was agreed with Stoke City and then the doctor spoke. Birmingham have walked away from a signing on the advice of somebody who never saw him play, which is how it is supposed to work.
Boardroom7 Sep 2026
Deadline passes with 13 signed and 14 gone
That is the business done at Birmingham until the window opens again. Whether it was enough will be answered on Saturdays rather than in a column, and the first Saturday is close.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Tyler Fredricson arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Tyler Fredricson has, at Birmingham, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad7 Sep 2026
46 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
Squad7 Sep 2026
Ibrahim Osman was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
$76.0K on the table at Coventry City. The manager wanted him, the board agreed a number, and the only voices still to be heard are the ones at the other club.
Player ratings7 Sep 2026
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Transfer targets7 Sep 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Luton Town have kept their man, and Birmingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout7 Sep 2026
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 43. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Market31 Aug 2026
Carlos Vicente has left for Tottenham in a $35.4M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Market31 Aug 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market31 Aug 2026
The offer from Brentford for Christoph Klarer was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market31 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Birmingham have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Everything agreed with Stoke City, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Birmingham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Newcastle United have kept their man, and Birmingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Match29 Aug 2026
0‑1 to Watford, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market24 Aug 2026
Fee agreed, wages agreed, and Bournemouth waiting with a shirt. Nobody at Birmingham is pretending otherwise, and the supporters have stopped asking whether and started asking when.
Match22 Aug 2026
Ibrahim Osman had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and West Bromwich Albion were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Market24 Aug 2026
Aston Villa pay $14.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Market24 Aug 2026
Leeds United pay $8.6M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
Ibrahim Osman, 21, steals the show — 7.84
Marked 7.84 at 21, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Nottingham Forest for Jay Stansfield was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Ibrahim Osman and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Kashiwa Reysol have kept their man, and Birmingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market17 Aug 2026
Chelsea come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Birmingham did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Match15 Aug 2026
There were 87 minutes on the clock and Wrexham had all but banked the point. Football rarely reads the room, and Birmingham did not stop to explain themselves.
Market17 Aug 2026
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Birmingham people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market17 Aug 2026
Business is business: Alex Cochrane goes
Everton paid $7.6M and Birmingham took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
The hardest thing about being 19 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Myles Lewis-Skelly did not need any: 7.72, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Ibrahim Osman and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Boardroom17 Aug 2026
5 academy players handed senior numbers at Birmingham
The morning the pathway stops being a brochure and becomes a team sheet. Most of them will not be here in three years; all of them have already done the hard part, which was getting to today.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Seattle Sounders have kept their man, and Birmingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Words at Birmingham training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Denzil Uchenna is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad10 Aug 2026
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Carlos Vicente commits to Birmingham for another 4 years.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
The paperwork begins on Julio Soler
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Birmingham have done the hard part with Bournemouth, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad10 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Birmingham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Transfer targets10 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Tottenham have kept their man, and Birmingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market10 Aug 2026
The name of Bright Osayi-Samuel has come up in conversations Birmingham were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
The dugout10 Aug 2026
Luis Vázquez gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
Squad10 Aug 2026
A row about effort at Birmingham
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Craig Dawson was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Market10 Aug 2026
The clock runs on Max Bird's contract
48 months left and silence from upstairs — no offer, no talks, nothing for his people to answer. Clubs that let a calendar do their negotiating usually end up negotiating with the calendar.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer from Ferencvaros for Christoph Klarer was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Max Bird signs a new deal
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Max Bird commits to Birmingham for another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Carlos Vicente was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Christoph Klarer falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
Market3 Aug 2026
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Birmingham have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad3 Aug 2026
8 new faces, and Birmingham are still learning each other
A squad rebuilt inside one window pays for it in a currency nobody budgets for. The football is not worse than the sum of the players; it is worse than the sum of the players who have played together before.