Birmingham City has seen their positive start to the brand-new Championship season unravel somewhat in recent games.
Indeed, the Blues raced out of the blocks very quickly after promotion with two wins and a draw, kickstarting their season on an unbeaten footing.
However, since an unexpected EFL Cup exit at the hands of Port Vale, the usually confident side have lost their way, as seen in the unfamiliar feeling of back-to-back defeats greeting Chris Davies recently.
Birmingham now find themselves all the way down in 11th position in the early league standings off the back of these two losses, with Davies praying he can get a tune out of his underperformers again very shortly, with Kyogo Furuhashi and Jay Stansfield – in particular – looking uncharacteristically rusty.
Birmingham's woes in attack this season
Birmingham are no longer the feared team in the division, having once bagged a weighty 86 goals on the way to lifting the League One title on a resounding 111 points.
Now, they find themselves in a middle-of-the-road position in the league above, with their recent attacking performances leaving a lot to be desired, arguably.
Frustratingly, since being in the right place at the right time to convert a golden opportunity back in August, summer arrival Kyogo, has regularly fired blanks.
Indeed, his lacklustre showing against Leicester City at the end of the month saw him make no accurate passes, while also struggling to catch out Jakub Stolarczyk with a goal-bound effort.
Having cost a reported £10m to bring to St. Andrew’s this summer, there will be a lot of worries already in the air that the former Celtic attacker isn’t cut out for the intense pressures of the EFL, and he will be viewed, down the line, as a costly mishap.
It’s not just new signings who have failed to settle up top, however, with Birmingham’s usually dependable number 28 in Stansfield also misplacing his shooting boots.
His last three outings in the cup and league have seen goals pass him by, with just 69 touches coming his way across those clashes, as the ex-Fulham youngster recedes into his shell.
Davies does have Marvin Ducksch as an alternative option in this department, but he will surely be resentful of Birmingham’s decision in the summer to part ways with this EFL-experienced marksman, who is now outperforming both Kyogo and Stansfield.
Kyogo & Stansfield being outperformed by ex-Blue
An unfortunate consequence of promotion glory is the rash decision-making that follows, as certain individuals are cast aside for flashier purchases who they hope will star in the league above.
In all fairness, there was plenty of logic behind Birmingham’s decision to part ways with electric goal machine Alfie May this summer, considering the hard-working veteran has never fired home a goal in the challenging Championship across his lower-league career to date.
Still, unwanted records like that are meant to be broken, and with May fresh off a promotion-winning return of 16 goals and eight assists in the third tier, Birmingham might well have been better placed to persevere with their experienced 32-year-old and see what he could do if given a chance up a league.
Birmingham’s loss has ended up being Huddersfield Town’s gain, though, with the brand-new Terriers number 26 now outperforming both Kyogo and Stansfield, situated back in League One, as he prepares to be yet another driving force for a side attempting to push back into the EFL’s elite division.
Games played
6
Games started
4
Mins per game
64 mins
Goals scored
2
Assists
2
Shots per game
2.4
Big chances missed
2
When looking at the table above, in league action for Lee Grant’s men this season, May boasts one more goal involvement than both the Englishman and the Japan international, with those four goals and assists coming about despite making just four starts.
His ability to be a “wonderful” option from off the bench – as he was once labelled by ex-boss Nathan Jones – would certainly boost Birmingham right now, with Davies no doubt now growing impatient with the wasteful displays of both Stansfield and Kyogo.
Of course, there’s no guarantee May would come back into the fold and be an instant success in such a daunting division.
But, there are certainly worse shouts out there, as Davies now tries to get his team firing again to ensure they don’t slide down the competitive league even more.
