Where AI thinks Birmingham City would be if Tom Wagner had bought the club five years earlier | OneFootball

ChatGPT gives its verdict on where Birmingham City could have been had Tom Wagner arrived at the club five years earlier.

Birmingham City have experienced a topsy turvy half a decade or so with the now ambitious Blues continuing to build in a positive way, both on and off the pitch.

Following the takeover of the club by Tom Wagner and Shelby Companies Ltd back in 2023, Birmingham succumbed to a shock relegation from the Championship in the 2023/24 campaign.

Some extremely heavy spending, especially by League One standards, saw the Blues emphatically win promotion back to the second-tier, under the management of Chris Davies.

Having set the all-time EFL points tally with 111 collected, Birmingham, both the club’s hierarchy and fanbase, appeared set to be targeting another promotion challenge last season.

Going from League One to the top-flight in two seasons is not unprecedented, with Ipswich Town having achieved that feat very recently, and Birmingham were again ambitious in the transfer market.

However, an underwhelming campaign unfolded as they found their footing back in the Championship, eventually finishing firmly in the middle-of-the-table with some supporters becoming frustrated at times.

They remain a club with a lot of ambition, though, and in a much better spot off the pitch than they were a few years ago, especially with the planned Sports Quarter project.

It does beg the question as to how good this could have been by now had Wagner and his group, involving Tom Brady, arrived even earlier and so FLW has consulted AI chatbot ChatGPT to get an idea of that.

AI believes Birmingham would be a Premier League club

According to ChatGPT, there is a ‘reasonable’ chance that Birmingham would already be a well-established Premier League club by now, had Wagner took charge back in 2018, rather than 2023.

The chatbot has outlined what Wagner inherited back in 2018 with it listing: ‘years of underinvestment’, ‘decaying infrastructure, ‘financial restrictions’, ‘poor recruitment’, ‘ownership instability’ and ‘no commercial growth’.

It then explains how Wagner has, in just two years, has managed modernise the club with increased commercial revenue, while also launching those plans for the Sports Quarter – which have since been supported by West Midlands mayor Richard Parker.

ChatGPT then outlined what would have been a best case timeline had Wagner’s ownership and running of the club began half a decade earlier.

It suggests that City would have been an established promotion contender by the 2021/22 campaign before gaining promotion within the next couple of years and then sitting somewhere in the bottom-half of the Premier League table by now – earning comparisons to the likes of AFC Bournemouth, Brentford and Brighton and Hove Albion.

Tom Wagner will believe he can achieve top-flight status with Birmingham

As ChatGPT goes on to point out, Tom Wagner has talked about how he wants to turn Birmingham into a globally relevant club, with the Premier League seemingly an inevitability in his plan.

ChatGPT was wary about suggesting Birmingham would have been able to establish themselves as a so-called ‘big six’ club due to the Profit and Sustainability Rules with a lot of work still to be done even after two years of Wagner-led ownership.

The biggest thing that ChatGPT believes Birmingham missed out on was ‘momentum’ with a continued stagnation before his arrival leading them to circling the drain towards the third division – which they eventually fell through.

ChatGPT explains that had Wagner arrived in 2018, ‘Jude Bellingham’s emergence could’ve happened in a healthier environment’, League One may have been avoided and the Sports Quarter project may well already be underway.

ChatGPT suggests Birmingham could have been a Premier League by now had Wagner’s ownership began a few years earlier – and so the prospect of what they will be a few years from now can only be a tantalising one for Blues supporters.

The argument to go against the AI would be to look at just how difficult it was for Birmingham to really compete towards the top end of the Championship.

Despite their record-breaking League One campaign and a general belief in the coach who led them to that, Birmingham struggled to find much consistency at all - unable to flex their financial muscles at a higher level.

There can be a connection drawn between the wealth of Birmingham being enormous relative to League One before becoming much more normal in the Championship and their style of football following a similar pattern.

For example, in the third-tier, Birmingham could and did out spend everyone to a remarkable degree. They were then able to dictate pretty much every game of football with their heavy possession-based style.

That financial weight in League One isn't the same when competing in the Championship and that style of football is also not unique nor so strong to be able to also dominate Championship teams week in and week out - perhaps needing to show a bit more adaptability both on and off the pitch, rather than either throwing money around off it or simply trying to do 'Plan A' better on it.

The club, naturally, has enormous potential in the second city and the openness of the Championship means that, over the course of two or three years, anything truly can happen - and the finances of Birmingham will help them in their eventual goal of returning to the Premier League.

Progress is not always linear, though, as has already been the case with relegation a couple of years ago and then an underwhelming dipping below pre-season expectations last year.

AI may well be correct and the signs of why and how Birmingham may eventually succeed in their longer-term goals are reasonable - but there will have to be a concern, or at least a thought, as to why it was they did underperform when back at the higher level and whether that will be a sign of things to come for a while longer yet.