![\"Zaid](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0_JS375151048.jpg\")
Zaid Betteka of Birmingham City<\/p>\nChris Davies has welcomed a clutch of Birmingham City’s kids into the first team fold for pre-seasonZaid Betteka of Birmingham City<\/p>\n
It has arguably never been more difficult to jump from Birmingham City\u2019s<\/a> academy to the first team.<\/p>\n Blues have invested heavily in the last two summers with the aim of securing back-to-back promotions to the Premier League.<\/p>\n Part one was completed in record-breaking fashion last season and Chris Davies<\/a> didn\u2019t lean on the academy whilst Blues were in League One.<\/p>\n Zaid Betteka, 18, was the only academy product Davies gave a debut to in 2024\/25 and the club\u2019s return to the Championship has made it more difficult for others to break through.<\/p>\n Betteka has again impressed Davies in pre-season with promising showings against Sevilla and Solihull<\/a> Moors, but he still sits outside the first team picture.<\/p>\n Briar Bateman, who at 17 was the youngest player included on Blues\u2019 pre-season camp in Portugal, and fellow forward Daniel Isichei have also caught Davies\u2019 eye.<\/p>\n The Blues manager doesn\u2019t envisage any of the aforementioned trio playing a part in the club\u2019s first team this coming season though.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a big jump,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re only moving to Category One status this season so there\u2019s a big future for the club and we will develop and improve the quality of our young players in the next several years, almost definitely because we\u2019re moving to Category One.<\/p>\n \u201cLast season Zaid was the only one I gave a debut to when he came on against Lincoln in the FA Cup<\/a> and I think Zaid has developed really well. He did well against Sevilla and you see him again (against Solihull Moors).<\/p>\n \u201cDaniel has done really well. He did really well against Crewe as a left-winger. Briar as well. They are players I do believe in and I think they\u2019ve got the quality, ability and the speed but they are very much in that development phase.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re thinking about their pathway for this season; is it the right loan or is it playing with the 21s and training with me and the first team as much as possible?<\/p>\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say there\u2019s any of them that we think are going to be part of our first team squad this season but I feel like it\u2019s coming. I would say there\u2019s a closer connection between them and the first team than I felt last year, which is encouraging.<\/p>\n \u201cThey know what I want a Birmingham<\/a> City player to do. I think we\u2019ve got a few that are getting closer.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you think Blues need to provide a better pathway for their youngsters? Have your say HERE<\/a>Get the latest Blues headlines sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n BirminghamLive has its very own Birmingham City<\/a> WhatsApp community to deliver the latest headlines straight to your phone. Just click this link<\/a> to receive daily Blues content and breaking news. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don\u2019t like our community, you can check out any time you like. Click on the name at the top of your screen while in WhatsApp and click ‘Exit Group’. Read our Privacy Notice.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Davies has welcomed a clutch of Birmingham City’s kids into the first team fold for pre-seasonZaid Betteka…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,1205,748,8372,393,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-295476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-birmingham","9":"tag-birmingham-city-fc","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-chris-davies-football-coach","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114924375654545858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}