Premiership Season Preview 2007/08 – Birmingham

25th Jun 2007, 18:58

Forbes magazine’s annual rich list of football clubs published in March of this year showed that ten of the top twenty-five most valuable football clubs in the world play in the Premiership. Their relative positions in that elite group correlate closely with success on the field, underlining the close relationship between spending power and success, the prevailing philosophy of ‘speculate to accumulate’ seems to hold true. The frenetic horse-trading of the summer months is the most important phase in the process of Premiership clubs reorganising and strengthening their squads, providing ante-post players with vital clues to next season’s competition.

Birmingham Back in the Big Time – But for How Long?

One season after relegation from the Premiership, Birmingham FC have bounced straight back into the big time, but their stay could be short-lived. PinnacleSports.com rate the Blues as one of the favourites for relegation in what is becoming an even harsher league to survive in with every passing season.

Having been out of the top-flight from 1984 to 2002, the Midlands club gained promotion to the Premiership thanks to the backing of wealthy patrons, club owner David Gold and parent company owner, David Sullivan. The pair have run the club in a prudent manner, but gave manager Steve Bruce the biggest available transfer fund in the Championship, which helped promote the club as runners-up behind Sunderland. In spite of this Birmingham re-enter the Premiership in profit, having sold off many of their best players - Matthew Upson, Jermain Pennant, Nicky Butt and Jiri Jarosik - following relegation in 2006, to offset the loss of revenue experienced in the Championship.

Steve Bruce brought in several attacking players to get the Midlanders back into the Premiership, and though Gary McSheffrey, Rowen Vine, Sebastian Larsson, Neil Danns and DJ Campbell did the job, between them they have absolutely no Premiership experience and face an altogether greater challenge surviving in the top flight. Bruce will be encourage by the experience of Reading last season, but his untested side will be thrown straight in at the deep-end facing Chelsea on match-day one.

Birmingham look short of star quality, particularly in midfield, where better class teams could potentially overrun them. Modest outlays on the signings of Stuart Parnaby from Middlesbrough and Garry O’Connor from Lokomotiv Moscow hardly set the division alight so Bruce will be hoping that the enthusiasm of his squad will compensate for the lack of experience.

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