Birmingham City should avoid repeat of Sunderland saga for supporters' sake: View | OneFootball

Birmingham City's 13-year stay in the Championship came to an end last weekend, and they were relegated to League One despite winning on the final day against Norwich City.

With relegation to the third tier confirmed, the club from St. Andrew's will likely lose a number of key players this summer, and will have to build a squad capable of winning promotion from League One at the first attempt.

Jay Stansfield spent the 2023/24 season on loan with Birmingham City, and he was a standout player for the club, finishing the season with 13 goals, which made him Blues' top goalscorer, and he received a number of awards for his performances this past season.

Incredibly, Stansfield completed a clean sweep at the club's recent awards night, winning Supporters' Player of the Season, Players' Player of the Season, Young Player of the Season, Goal of the Season and the Top Goalscorer award.

Admittedly, it was a poor campaign for the club, but it was still a remarkable achievement to win all five awards.

The 21-year-old will now return to parent club Fulham, and Birmingham City's chances of re-signing him have been dealt a huge blow thanks to their relegation.

Birmingham City can't spend all summer chasing Jay Stansfield

Thanks to relegation to League One, Birmingham City must understand that their chances of being able to sign Stansfield again are incredibly slim.

Had they remained in the Championship, they may have had a decent chance of signing him on loan again had Fulham wanted to loan him out, but the Cottagers won't want him to be playing League One football next season.

Fulham loaned Stansfield to third tier side Exeter City for the 2022/23 season, having signed him initially years ago as a teenager from the Grecians, before sending him to Birmingham the following year, so another League One loan would probably stunt the forward's development.

Birmingham need to realise this, and should instead focus on more realistic, attainable targets this summer.

The last thing Birmingham should do now is spend the whole summer targeting Stansfield and risk missing out on other transfer targets. This would be a disaster and spending all summer trying to sign the Fulham man would no doubt hinder their transfer business.

Stansfield has been great for Birmingham, and, of course, they would love to have him back next season, but the sooner they realise it's not happening, the more chance they have of building a fresh squad for next season.

There are plenty of other talented young forwards who may be easier to sign in League One, and instead the Blues' hierarchy should start looking to the future.

Birmingham can't make the same mistake that Sunderland did with Amad Diallo

One club who tried to sign Stansfield last season were Sunderland, and they had their own saga during 2023-24 involving Manchester United winger Amad Diallo, who joined the Black Cats on loan during the 2022/23 season and scored 14 goals and registering four assists in 42 games.

With that in mind, Sunderland supporters clearly wanted him to return this season - the Black Cats hierarcy tried their best but were unsuccessful, and Diallo remained at Manchester United this season, despite minimal playing time under Erik ten Hag.

This is the last thing that Sunderland's supporters would have wanted, as focusing on bringing Diallo back to the club for so long just meant that they missed out on other targets.

By all means were Sunderland right to enquire about bringing Diallo back to the Stadium of Light, but as soon as it became apparent that it wasn't happening, they should have given up and moved onto the next target.

Birmingham City should look at Sunderland's Diallo example as a warning, and must avoid chasing one player over a long period of time when there are other suitable options on the market.

Similarly to Diallo at Sunderland, chasing Stansfield would get supporters' hopes up, only for it to be highly unlikely they'd be able to sign the player.

This summer gives Birmingham the chance to make a much-needed fresh start, and they should focus on fresh targets as they look to make an immediate return to the Championship.