{"id":711899,"date":"2026-01-22T00:15:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:15:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/711899\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T00:15:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:15:13","slug":"championship-rival-set-to-hijack-birminghams-move-for-premier-league-player-in-big-transfer-twist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/711899\/","title":{"rendered":"Championship rival set to hijack Birmingham’s move for Premier League player in big transfer twist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Middlesbrough are set to complete an 11th-hour hijack of Jeremy Sarmiento’s move to Birmingham City, talkSPORT understands.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After pulling out of the race 24 hours ago with Birmingham close to signing the Ecuadorian, Middlesbrough will pinch Sarmiento from their grasp.<\/p>\n

\"Sarmiento<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Sarmiento (right) has a choice to make nowCredit: Getty<\/p>\n

Boro have verbally agreed a fee in the region of \u00a33.5million with Brighton and on Wednesday evening put terms in place with the player. <\/p>\n

Sarmiento is set to undergo his Middlesbrough medical this week pending final approvals. <\/p>\n

Sarmiento is currently on loan from Brighton to Cremonese, where he has been playing with Jamie Vardy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the Seagulls are looking to recall him to sell the Ecuadorian international on, and he’s only made seven appearances this season for the Italian side.<\/p>\n

Read more on football<\/p>\n

From Boro’s point of view, this is a player who knows the Championship well, having played for Burnley and West Bromwich Albion.<\/p>\n

In 75 games in England’s second tier, he has nine goals and two assists.<\/p>\n

The decision now lies with Sarmiento to choose his next club, but if he is thinking about getting into the Premier League, Boro might be the best bet.<\/p>\n

The North East club are third in the Championship, one point behind Ipswich Town for the race to the top-flight.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Birmingham are down in 13th place.<\/p>\n

\"Sarmiento's<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Sarmiento’s experience stands him out as a good choice despite being a young playerCredit: Getty\"Sarmiento<\/a><\/p>\n

3<\/p>\n

Sarmiento has been training with Vardy for the past few monthsCredit: GettyBattle on<\/p>\n

No matter which club Sarmiento joins, Brighton stand to make a hefty bit of profit on Sarmiento, having spent under \u00a3500,000 to sign him from Benfica.<\/p>\n

It’s clear why Middlesbrough and Birmingham want him; Sarmiento’s EFL experience and ability to play in numerous roles across the attacking part of the pitch.<\/p>\n

Kim Hellberg has made a good start to life as Boro manager, with six wins from ten in the Championship.<\/p>\n

His team are playing free-flowing football and are looking good to at least make the play-offs.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, big things were expected of Birmingham after some huge signings in recent years, but it’s not quite happened.<\/p>\n

They aren’t doing badly, and most newly-promoted sides would be relatively happy with mid-table halfway through a season.<\/p>\n

But with ambitious owners, comes great expectations, and they are five points off the play-offs, so a big January could get them in there come the end of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Middlesbrough are set to complete an 11th-hour hijack of Jeremy Sarmiento’s move to Birmingham City, talkSPORT understands. After…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[855,213223,21116,748,393,4884,2923,213224,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-711899","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-jeremy-sarmiento","10":"tag-brighton-hove-albion","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-middlesbrough","15":"tag-middlesbrough-hack-birmingham-transfer","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115935872694310455","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711899","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=711899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}