The Birmingham City centre back has made a strong start to life in English football – but it could have come so much sooner
Phil Neumann of Birmingham City
Phil Neumann admits he would have loved to have been part of Birmingham City ’s League One title winning charge.
The impressive centre-back has played all but two minutes of Blues’ three Championship matches so far this term, forging a no-nonsense partnership with captain Christoph Klarer.
Neumann joined on a free transfer from Hannover 96 earlier this summer, and standing 6ft 3ins tall and blessed with pace, the 28-year-old has shown just why Blues were so keen to bring him in.
Indeed, they tried to do so 12 months ago, but the 2 Bundesliga club refused to sell him – and they also knocked back Blues’ attempts in January.
In the end, Neumann could do no more than sign a pre-contract agreement, which meant he had to wait a year for the transfer – and even then Hannover were unhappy that Blues announced the deal an hour after they had played Jahn Regensburg.
In confirming the deal Hannover added a snarky paragraph to their statement, noting: “ Birmingham City have insisted on releasing the transfer on match-day against Regensburg.”
Then their sporting director Marcus Mann doubled down and fumed: “The English way is not okay. And that doesn’t make communication any easier. We won’t let an English third division team dictate what to do.”
Speaking after Saturday’s 1-0 win over Oxford United, Neumann welcomed an end to the drawn out saga.
“It’s nice to finally be here,” he said. “I wish I would have moved here one year earlier, but yeah, now I’m here and I’m really happy to be here.
“The team makes it really easy for me. The first person who came to me right before I joined wrote me messages and said ‘Yeah, we’re happy to have you here soon’. It makes me [have] a good feeling.
“When I came in, everybody was really lovely, and it’s the same now with every other new player who comes in – you feel settled in really, really fast.”
His relationship with Klarer looks complementary and so far he has found the Championship exactly as billed.
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“I think it fits good. We know each other not that long, but we speak English and German together and I know what he’s doing and he knows me really good, so we can support each other.
“It was a really tough game [against Oxford] as we expected – hard opponent. We had to wait for the spaces for creating chances, but we did really well and it could have been much more goals, but in the end it’s a win and that’s an important thing.
“I think it was a typical game – we’ve got the better team, we got a lot of ball position, but a lot of long balls from the opponent, hard fights against the strikers. It was a little bit fun. We have had a really good start to the season, for the team and for me, we just keep going.”
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