Birmingham City: Chris Davies must fear he's got £1.5m signing wrong - Blues haven't seen Eredivisie form | OneFootball

Birmingham City's recruitment, whilst lavish, has seemed to pay off in League One - except with one player

Birmingham City are in a strong position in League One, sitting top of the table with 12 games remaining.

The Blues are 11 points clear with a game in hand over second-placed Wycombe Wanderers, suggesting that their pre-season flurry of transfers has paid off.

But question marks remain over the suitability of Swedish winger Emil Hansson.

Emil Hansson signing an outlier in Birmingham City’s transfer success

Much has been made of Birmingham’s spending ahead of their first season back in the third tier since 1995, with the Blues clearly looking to secure an instant return to the Championship via heavy investment in the transfer market.

Birmingham’s marquee signings have largely paid off, with League One record signing Jay Stansfield grabbing 16 goals in 25 league appearances.

Alongside the £15million Birmingham reportedly paid for Stansfield, they also parted with a rumoured £3.5million for the services of defender Christoph Klarer from German outfit Darmstadt.

But whilst for the most part Birmingham’s recruitment has been spot on, there remain questions regarding the addition of Emil Hansson.

Birmingham paid Dutch outfit Hercules a reported £1.5million in order to bring Hansson over to England.

Having spent time in Norway and Sweden during his youth career, Hansson’s early years as a senior professional saw the winger take in spells in the Netherlands, Germany, and Norway.

The much-travelled winger arrived at St Andrew’s with a reputation for providing assists, having produced 19 in a one-year span between March 2022 to March 2023.

But in 17 League One appearances, Hansson has only managed one goal and an assist, leading to doubts over his suitability to the English game.

Birmingham City and Emil Hansson will hope injury woes are behind winger

Hansson’s game-time at Birmingham has been impacted by two separate spells with injury.

Initially a starting player as Birmingham began life in the third tier with eight unbeaten games, Hansson was reduced to a bench role prior to an injury sustained against Bolton Wanderers in October.

After making his return from injury at the end of December off the bench, Hansson picked up a new issue on his first start after returning, coming off at half-time in a 0-0 draw with Blackpool.

That led to a two-month lay-off, with Hansson only making his return at the end of February against Leyton Orient.

In recent weeks he has returned to the starting XI, leading to his first league goal for the Blues against Bolton, but the 26-year-old has been unable to last longer than an hour on the pitch.

Even prior to injury, the Swedish under-21 international had not played a full 90 minutes for the Blues in League One.

With Birmingham hoping to get over the line and secure promotion from League One, Hansson will hope to remain fit and get a run of games under his belt to prove his usefulness to the Blues.

Otherwise, Birmingham will probably wonder if they were right to part with £1.5million for an injury-prone player.