Some of the Birmingham City super project is going perfectly to plan. The designs for the new 62,000 stadium are out, an otherworldly concept of red-brick chimneys and blue panelling.
Architects Populous are on board; they worked on the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley. Governmental meetings have taken place over the level of public funding for the Sports Quarter and necessary transport links.
This is the Knighthead masterplan. Birmingham City Council have precious little financial leeway and hedge fund money sensed an opportunity. Knighthead Capital owns 49 per cent of the Birmingham Phoenix Hundred cricket franchise and a stake in the netball team. Birmingham sport and culture is effectively a distressed asset; private finance usually fills the void.
But Birmingham City has always been the cornerstone of the project because football clubs are the easiest vehicles for rampant ambition to be celebrated by the masses.
Last season, the most expensively assembled squad in third-tier history achieved the highest points total in third-tier history. This season, they wanted a repeat promotion. That is how the hierarchy spoke and they have never apologised for it.
Rebuilding any football club is expensive, but especially one that you have promised to take the moon in absurdly quick time. Birmingham have signed 41 different players on permanent or loan deals since June 2024 and a good number of those were either expensive, on long contracts or both.
Revenues have increased exponentially under Knighthead, both a reflection of its acumen and the work of previous owners. There is an Amazon documentary. Stadium facilities – notably in hospitality areas – have improved so supporters spend more time and money.
Levers have also been pulled. Last month, a deal was agreed to sell 97 per cent of the women’s team to Shelby Companies Limited, a subsidiary of Knighthead. It is an accounting trick used by others but also one that will soon be banned and with good reason. The point is this: lots of money has been spent.
For a while, this was a pure good news story in the eyes of supporters. You can see why: when you have been burnt so many times by supposed guardians, the proven ambition of their replacement will always go down well. And there was not much to complain about. Before Monday night, Birmingham had lost one home league game since April 2024.
But this season has been harder than Birmingham, or at least those who speak for it, ever considered that it was likely to be. The belief that automatic promotion was a hope and a top-six finish the expectation now looks lost; Birmingham have drawn too many home games and lost too many away for that.
The eight-point gap to the top six is not insurmountable, but there are five clubs between Birmingham and Wrexham and the form does not stack up: 13 teams have more points over their last 15 Championship matches.
That has raised questions of manager Chris Davies’ performance in some quarters, including many of those who traipsed out early on Monday night. There are some accusations that carry some weight: penetration without end product, issues in playing out from the back, too much loyalty to certain players and a lack of rotation.
Instead, look further up the food chain. Birmingham signed 14 players last summer, a recruitment drive led by director of football Craig Gardner. Kyogo Furuhashi, the most expensive arrival, has scored one league goal. Taylor Gardner-Hickman, Alfons Sampsted and Kanya Fujimoto have two league starts between them.
Having understood that mistakes were made, Birmingham went big again in January: five permanent signings and two more loans. And yet this team still looks weak at right-back, goalkeeper, one of the central defensive positions and it still does not score enough goals.
The age profile of players signed – 12 of the 14 permanent arrivals were aged 25 or over – proved the “win now” mentality and yet this still isn’t a team that looks ready to do it. That has to be on the club, not the manager.
None of this should be a problem, nor would it be in normal circumstances. Birmingham are an upper-midtable Championship club who have not finished in the top half of the second tier for a decade. This season has been perfectly acceptable, with the glow of a record-breaking promotion still lighting up St Andrew’s.
But Birmingham made this a problem through their naked ambition. Until now, the faith in Davies remains (and he has done a very good job). But how do you marry that with the “win now, take over soon” policy that runs like an aorta through everything Knighthead has said and done?
What does that attitude do to people? Those in charge have no choice but to double down on spending to chase their tails after mistakes because the alternative is to see how things play out. The level of the outlay and the age of those signed – with financial limitations surely soon to be an issue – disallows that.
New players arrive knowing that they have to perform immediately with little room to breathe because everybody has heard what the club says about their expected goals. The manager is criticised for loyalty to certain players, but there is so much change that such behaviour is necessary to retain some control.
And, most obviously of all, supporters are hardwired into impatience. On Monday night against Middlesbrough, all the hallmarks: targeting individual players for jeers, booing at half-time, empty seats at full-time and a bubbling angst whenever Birmingham are not winning.
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At some clubs, you could argue for that as evidence of undue impatience or entitlement. But what do you expect when the club itself openly engineered these attitudes? The danger with publicly talking up a desire to constantly move forwards is that it stops people from taking any moment to enjoy the view.
Birmingham City have monumentally grand designs; those have not changed. Maybe they get it right this summer and avoid questions over annual losses through Premier League revenue. Maybe the revenues will grow again and allow another splurge.
But this season has been a lesson in learning that the proof of the pudding at any football club will only ever be on the pitch and that is largely decided by the decisions you make off it. Talking a good game is infinitely easier than playing one. The super project now feels more fragile and half-formed, the mood just a little too fractious for whatever comes next.
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