Harry Redknapp transfer truth revealed from Birmingham City disaster | OneFootball

A former Blues defender has lifted the lid on his own transfer to the club in 2017 and revealed an incredible detail about how the club was being run.

A former Birmingham City defender has lifted the lid on his arrival at the club, and in doing so has said something quite profound about the way in which they were being run at the time.

With a place in the play-offs now out of reach, the 2025-26 season has turned out to be something of a disappointment for Birmingham City. The club have big plans for the future, but a run of six defeats in eight games at precisely the wrong time dropped the club into the bottom half of the Championship table, rendering their much-vaunted bid for a second successive promotion redundant.

But much as there will be unhappiness at the way in which this season tailed off, it does remain the case that Birmingham are far better run under the ownership of the Shelby Group, who purchased the club in 2023, than they were under their previous owners.

For years, the Blues were involved in an annual race just to avoid relegation into League One, and one of the bigger ironies of the last few years of the club's history is that this relegation came about after the club had been put into safer hands.

Former Blues defender lifts the lid on his arrival at St Andrew's

Speaking to the Made In Brum podcast, former Blues defender Harlee Dean told the story of his arrival at the club in 2017, and what he said speaks volumes for the way in which the club was being run at the time.

"The first time I met Harry was when I drove up for the medical", he told them, "I had a conversation with him and he was talking to my agent like my agent was the player and I was the agent. I'm pretty sure he didn't know it was me."

"He was talking to him, like, 'Cracking, we need a big a centre-half like come and head it and play a bit, we've got a big man in the ten I want you to hit'," he continued, "I wouldn't mind, but the agent looks like a 5'4 left-back! I came out of there and said, "Scott, do you think he was talking to you?" and he was like, "Nah", but he definitely didn't have a clue who I was!"

Dean signed for Birmingham City at the very end of the summer transfer window from Brentford for an undisclosed fee which was reported to be in excess of £2 million.

Harlee Dean ended up staying at Birmingham for far longer than Harry Redknapp

Ironically, considering that the manager didn't know who he was when he first turned up at the club, Harlee Dean's relationship with Birmingham City ended up lasting much longer than Harry Redknapp's did.

Redknapp arrived at St Andrew's on the 18th April 2017, with three games of the 2016-17 left to play and Birmingham only three points above the relegation positions. He lost his first match in charge 1-0 to Aston Villa, but wins in their final two games of the season were enough to keep the Blues in the Championship and earn Redknapp a year's contract for the following season.

But following a disastrous start to the season in which they won just one of their first eight games, Redknapp was relieved of his duties on the 16th September, less than five months after first arriving at the club, with the team one place off the bottom of the Championship table. He was replaced by Steve Cotterill, but Cotterill only lasted until March 2018 before being replaced by Garry Monk, who eventually managed to steer the club to a second successive 19th-place finish.

Dean, meanwhile, would go on to become a mainstay at the heart of the Birmingham City defence for the next six years, running up 200 appearances for them before leaving for Reading in 2023. Now 34 years of age, he currently plays for non-league Morecambe.

There is no doubt that, given the pre-season optimism following their record-breaking League One title win last season, this season has been something of a disappointment for Birmingham City fans, and there has been widespread speculation that manager Chris Davies will be leaving the club at the end of this season. But if there's one thing to be said in his favour, at least we can be reasonably certain that Davies knows who all his players are.