Birmingham City have now played three pre-season friendlies and all of their signings bar Kanya Fujimoto have featured
10:55, 14 Jul 2025Updated 16:08, 21 Jul 2025
Demarai Gray in action on his Birmingham City return against Burton Albion. Credit: BCFC.com(Image: BCFC.com)
Birmingham City’s three pre-season friendlies have provided some interesting hints as to what squad numbers Chris Davies’ new recruits will select.
Blues beat Sevilla 3-1 in Portugal on July 12 with four of their new signings making their debuts. Phil Neumann played the first half, James Beadle kept goal for the second and Tommy Doyle and Bright Osayi-Samuel were eased in with 27 and 18 minutes respectively.
The quartet featured again in Saturday’s double-header versus Burton Albion and Crewe Alexandra, both of which ended in defeat for Blues.
James Beadle played for a second string Blues XI at Crewe, while Neumann, Osayi-Samuel, Doyle and Kyogo Furuhashi all started against Burton. Demarai Gray featured as a second half substitute in the Burton match.
Neumann has been wearing the number five shirt which has been held by former captain Dion Sanderson for the past two years.
Sanderson doesn’t form part of Davies’ plans and has been told he can leave, as reported by BirminghamLive two weeks ago, and Neumann looks set to take his number five shirt.
The German centre-back wore number five during his three years at Hannover 96 and occasionally played in it when he was part of Schalke’s second string.
There are other ‘first XI’ numbers available at Blues this summer and Doyle claimed eight against Sevilla before wearing Jay Stansfield’s 28 at Burton. Tyler Roberts has held the number eight for the past two seasons, albeit he didn’t play in League One for Blues last term, and is among those expected to depart.
Interestingly, Beadle hasn’t worn the number one shirt to continue the trend Blues started this time last year. They went into last season without a number one with Ryan Allsop in 21 and Bailey Peacock-Farrell in 45. Brighton loanee Beadle wore the number 25 against Sevilla and Crewe.
Osayi-Samuel wore 21 during his four years with Fenerbahce but, as Allsop currently holds that jersey, the Nigeria international has worn 16 on his back in pre-season.
Demarai Gray was number seven during his last stint at Blues but he donned 10 against Burton. It was in fact Kyogo who wore the seven shirt, just as he did during his brief spell with Rennes.
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