Birmingham City player set to seal top-flight transfer | OneFootball

Alfons Sampsted could be on his way out of Birmingham City amid transfer interest

Birmingham City defender Alfons Sampsted is reportedly set for a return to the Eredivisie with Go Ahead Eagles, who are also currently competing in the UEFA Europa League.

That is according to a report from Voetbal International on Thursday morning, with Blues continuing to oversee a heavy reshuffle of their squad across the current winter transfer window.

Football League World exclusively revealed at the start of the window that as many as eight players could be on their way out of St. Andrew's @ Knighthead Park up until the transfer deadline of 7PM on Monday, February 2nd, with the Icelandic full-back featuring amongst a quintet of players who could exit on a permanent basis.

At present, Chris Davies' side are currently 13th in the Championship, with a 2-0 victory against the second tier's bottom and crisis club, Sheffield Wednesday, seeing them close the gap on the play-off places to just five points.

As well as finalising the exits of multiple players who found themselves on the fringes of Davies' starting lineup in the West Midlands, Birmingham have also been fairly busy when it comes to confirming deals for new signings, with as many as four coming through the door on that regard.

It has also been reported that Davies is looking to further bolster his defensive options, albeit this comes at centre-back rather than full-back after Eiran Cashin's own loan stint from the AMEX Stadium was curtailed, with the Republic of Ireland international subsequently linking up with Blackburn Rovers.

As such, an exit for Sampsted, who finalised a permanent switch to St. Andrew's in the summer after an initial loan spell from fellow Eredivisie club, FC Twente, appears to be in the offing.

Birmingham City defender Alfons Sampsted set for Go Ahead Eagles transfer switch

It has been an intriguing 18-month spell with Blues for the Iceland international, whose compatriot, Willum Willumsson, completed a switch from Go Ahead to the then-League One side in the same transfer window back in the summer of 2024.

The full-back would complete his initial loan switch in the opening week of the club's record-breaking campaign last term, in which he played his part in achieving a 111-point total as well as an overall campaign that reached 60 matches across four competitions.

After making his debut in a 3-2 success over Wycombe Wanderers, the 27-year-old went on to feature in 16 further League One encounters, and managed to open his Blues account in the 2-1 away victory at Burton Albion last April.

Despite suffering with an ankle issue towards the halfway point of the campaign, Sampsted made 23 appearances across all competitions and saw a permanent move to St. Andrew's triggered 10 months ago due to the bizarre insertion of a non-relegation transfer clause in the loan switch from De Grolsch Veste.

Although the 23-time international was omitted from Davies' pre-season plans, as was called by FLW, Sampsted has still featured in eight matches across all competitions so far this term for Birmingham, albeit he has been unable to pin down a starting berth at right-back despite Ethan Laird and Bright Osayi-Samuel's well-documented unavailabilities due to injury and international call-ups, with Tomoki Iwata often filling in said position.

As such, it is now being reported that Sampsted is braced to join the Deventer-based club, who are set to lose Mats Deijl to Feyenoord, although a fee has not been mooted, nor the length of his potential contract.

Go Ahead Eagles are currently 13th in the Eredivisie and have two matches of their UEFA Europa League 'League Phase' to play out, which includes an away trip to OGC Nice on Thursday evening.

Blues supporters will also be well aware that Sampsted's potential new employers defeated their bitter rivals, Aston Villa, 2-1 back on October 23rd at De Adelaarshorst.

Alfons Sampsted would depart Birmingham City with plenty of goodwill

Despite only making 31 appearances for Blues, Sampsted has been a solid contributor to the club's recent progress whenever called upon, and the aforementioned departure news has seen him receive plenty of goodwill from those on the terraces.

At this stage of his career, the defender will hope to be sourcing regular minutes week-in, week-out, and that looks highly unlikely to be the case when Laird returns from a hamstring injury, which is expected to be next month, whilst Osayi-Samuel will hope to build on a strong AFCON campaign with Nigeria upon his return to club duty.

Therefore, this is a move which is likely to benefit all parties, and none more so than Sampsted himself.