{"id":332538,"date":"2025-08-10T07:11:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332538\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T07:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T07:11:14","slug":"birmingham-city-promotion-heroes-are-quickly-feeling-the-clubs-ruthless-hand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/332538\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham City promotion heroes are quickly feeling the club\u2019s ruthless hand"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chris Davies is going for another promotion at Birmingham City and players are falling by the wayside\"Alex<\/p>\n

Birmingham City reporter for BirminghamLive and the Birmingham Mail<\/p>\n

\"BirminghamBirmingham City chairman Tom Wagner shakes the hand of striker Alfie May following the League One trophy lift<\/p>\n

Alfie May has gone and a few of Birmingham City\u2019s<\/a> promotion heroes are clinging on with the club rushing to the Premier League.<\/p>\n

That is the aim this season, regardless of Friday night\u2019s outcome against Ipswich Town, and Chris Davies<\/a> is carefully weeding out those who he believes can\u2019t keep pace.<\/p>\n

The sale of May<\/a> to Huddersfield Town in July, 12 months after Blues gazumped the Terriers to the striker\u2019s signature, felt very ruthless if not unsurprising. May wasn\u2019t forced out, but Davies made it clear to the 32-year-old that he would struggle for minutes in the Championship this season and he isn\u2019t the only one who falls into that category.<\/p>\n

Named captain 12 months ago after committing his future to the club following relegation, Krystian Bielik is now fourth choice centre-back. Marc Leonard now not only has Paik Seung-ho and Tomoki Iwata in front of him, but Tommy Doyle too. Can Taylor Gardner-Hickman\u2019s versatility ensure that his own thirst for football is quenched? Willum Willumsson is another player whose slip down the pecking order might continue in August.<\/p>\n

Davies isn\u2019t exactly ripping up the team that won League One in record-breaking style last season, but he isn\u2019t staying true to it. This is the ruthless side of football and those signed last summer knew what they were getting into.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Radio WM<\/a> earlier this week, Davies said: \u201cI saw a great quote the other day in terms of leadership: when you decide you divide. That is a compelling statement and it’s true because you have to make decisions in terms of this squad and we have to get this balance right.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow can we keep the core of what was successful for us in terms of our team spirit, our togetherness, our fighting spirit and our system of play, but add to it, and that’s what I’ve been trying to navigate this summer.\u201d<\/p>\n

The month of August was where Davies was most ruthless last summer. He started Siriki Dembele and Koji Miyoshi on the opening day, only to sell them within a few weeks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s highly unlikely that anyone who started against Ipswich will suffer the same fate, but we can expect a natural rotation as those who were formerly leading men now come to terms with bit-parts.<\/p>\n

Will you be sad to see more promotion winners depart? Have your say HERE<\/a>Get the latest Blues headlines sent straight to your phone<\/p>\n

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Everyday, the BirminghamLive football desk strive to deliver all manner of news, features and transfer-related stories as a part of our overall package of Birmingham<\/a> City content. Our dedicated reporters Alex Dicken and Brian Dick – you can follow Alex on X here<\/a> and Brian here<\/a> – follow Blues around the country and they offer you comprehensive coverage from matchdays, press conferences and everything that happens in between. So much happens day to day and sometimes you can struggle to keep on top of the very latest updates as and when they occur – that’s why we have produced a daily newsletter which you can sign up to, for free, and which means you’ll have a round-up of the key stories land in your email inbox. Sign up to the Blues newsletter here<\/a>. You can also get all your favourite content from BirminghamLive’s Blues team on WhatsApp. Click here<\/a> to sign up for breaking updates about the biggest stories and insight from in and around the club. If you prefer reading our Blues stories on your phone, consider downloading the BirminghamLive app, in which you can personalise the content you see by selecting Villa as one of your designated topics. You can get it from Apple here<\/a> and for Android here<\/a>. Our weekly Birmingham City podcast, Keep Right On, is also available to watch and listen on all major streaming services. You can subscribe to the YouTube channel here, while you can access the podcast on Spotify here<\/a> and via Apple here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Davies is going for another promotion at Birmingham City and players are falling by the wayside Birmingham…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[8371,855,1205,748,8372,393,4884,27606,105499,15958,16,15,22284],"class_list":{"0":"post-332538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-alfie-may","9":"tag-birmingham","10":"tag-birmingham-city-fc","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-chris-davies-football-coach","13":"tag-england","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-krystian-bielik","16":"tag-marc-leonard","17":"tag-taylor-gardner-hickman","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-willum-willumsson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115003227248479776","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332538","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=332538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}