Che Adams has been linked with a return to Birmingham Cityplaceholder image
Che Adams has been linked with a return to Birmingham City | Getty Images/ Canva
Birmingham City’s financial might could give them a strong chance of re-signing a former fan favourite
Birmingham City are a very different team this season to the one that for most of their last 13-year-stint in the Championship was mostly treading water and trying to avoid the trap door of relegation to League One.
They are in much safer hands from a financial standpoint with Knighthead Capital Management and co-CEO Tom Wanger running the show behind the scenes - and the club also have much more ambitious targets of trying to reach the promised land of the Premier League rather than solely holding their place in the second tier.
"We want the fans to call this a product, an experience to be proud of. Put all of these things together and, from there, there's really no limit to what we can do,” said Wagner after arriving.
Birmingham bounced back from relegation and a calamitous start to the new ownership in fine fashion, achieving 111 points to win the League One title. However, despite having one of the biggest budgets in the division, Blues don’t yet look like a team ready to mount an automatic promotion push - leading to growing internal pressure behind the scenes on manager Chris Davies. But how can Birmingham look to rectify this in the summer?
Why Birmingham City should target Che Adams in January
Birmingham City competed in the Championship for 13 years before being relegated in 2024.
Despite winning the League Cup in their final year as a top-flight club, and having European football in their first term as a Championship side, Blues only ever qualified once for the play-offs once in the 2011/12 season, but with the exception of that never looked like competing for promotion and spent almost the entirety of the other 12 years fighting to survive.
A central reason behind them surviving for so long was the formidable form of Che Adams. He arrived as a promising third-tier striker after impressing at League One side Sheffield United and went on to score 34 goals in three seasons for Blues at Championship level, including 22 in his final campaign.
Omar Bogle, who played alongside him during a loan spell, described him as having traits similar to both Callum Wilson and Jermaine Defoe in the way he scored goals.
“Che has more physical attributes but in and around the box he is like Defoe, so quick at getting his shots off. He is an all-round striker. It does not just happen overnight. He has always been a great player but now he has the belief and backing from the manager. And now he is delivering the goods,” he told The Guardian in 2019.
Adams was eventually sold for £15m to then Premier League side Southampton. It was hard at the time for Birmingham to really reject that kind of money from a club with much loftier ambitions than their own particularly when they weren’t in the most healthy of financial situations either.
However, Birmingham are in a much more promising position at this moment and could now look to attract stronger quality to their squad to try and achieve their dream of returning to the Premier League.
Che Adams would be a brilliant signing - opinion
Che Adams has enjoyed a solid career since leaving Birmingham City. He scored 41 times in 164 league appearances for Southampton between 2019 and 2024 - and was particularly clinical at Championship level - scoring 16 times in 40 appearances to help the club to promotion before joining Torino in Serie A.
He’s done well in Italy, scoring 11 in 49 matches across all competitions, including nine last season. However, he’s started just three of his side’s opening nine league matches and could potentially return to English football in the near future.
A report from talkSPORT explained over the summer that there was genuine interest in the Scottish international from Birmingham, but added he may still need some convincing to move back to the second tier.
Birmingham already have a wealth of attacking options but are yet to see the best of them after only scoring 11 in 12 matches. However, unlike the others, Adams is proven at Championship level having scored 49 goals in four seasons in the competition, and is more than capable of hitting the ground running straight away.
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