Birmingham City transfer target is a 'definite upgrade' as Blues urged to beat Middlesbrough to deal | OneFootball

Jeremy Sarmiento has become the subject of an intriguing transfer saga

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Birmingham City have been praised for sourcing yet another "upgrade" to their wing department in the winter transfer window, with Jeremy Sarmiento heavily embroiled in a transfer saga involving Blues and Middlesbrough.

Sky Sports had reported via their Transfer Centre live blog (09:08 on Wednesday, January 21st) that the Seagulls and Blues have reached an initial agreement over a permanent switch for the Ecuadorian international, albeit personal terms were yet to be agreed.

However, in a shock twist, the Reds, who returned to second in the Championship with a comeback victory over Stoke City on Wednesday night, have reportedly hijacked the deal, and could finalise a move for Sarmiento later in the week depending on circumstances.

It has certainly been a busy window for Chris Davies and his recruitment team so far, with Birmingham already sourcing four exciting incomings to their squad in order to aid their hopes of reaching the play-offs at the end of the season, whilst also bidding farewell to a handful of players in the process.

Ahead of their 2-0 victory over the second tier's bottom club, Sheffield Wednesday, at Hillsborough on Tuesday night, the West Midlands outfit had already confirmed the acquisitions of Kai Wagner, Jhon Solis, Ibrahim Osman - who, ironically joined on loan from Brighton - and highly-rated Danish youth international forward, August Priske, from Allsvenskan club, Djurgardens IF.

It had also been reported before their victory in S6 that Birmingham had emerged as the front-runners in the race to sign Sarmiento, who had also found himself on the radar of divisional rivals Wrexham and Middlesbrough after enduring a difficult loan stint in Serie A with Cremonese.

Despite a lack of first-team minutes for the Italian top flight side in the early months of the campaign, Football League World's Birmingham City fan pundit, Jason Moore, is extremely excited about what the 23-year-old could offer Blues over time.

Birmingham City backed to secure 'definite upgrade' amid Brighton, Jeremy Sarmiento transfer news

As previously mentioned, Sarmiento had struggled to make an impact with Cremonese, with the last of his seven appearances for them coming back in November in a 1-0 away defeat to Pisa.

After becoming heavily linked with a move to the Riverside Stadium, it was then reported that Middlesbrough had ended their pursuit of the 24-time international due to the fact they are retaining Delano Burgzorg's services after interest from Bristol City, which, initially, looked to have given Blues an advantage in the transfer saga. However, it now remains to be seen if that is the case.

Although Davies has seen Demarai Gray and Patrick Roberts have strong impacts since their summer arrivals, a key criticism has been a lack of depth and quality beyond the experienced duo.

As such, Keshi Anderson saw his contract terminated last week before subsequently joining Portsmouth, whilst Lewis Koumas has become the subject of constant recall talk from Liverpool.

With the aforementioned arrival of Osman potentially followed up with a permanent swoop for Sarmiento amid divisional competition, Moore believes Blues will be coming out of the window in a much stronger position when it comes to Davies' options in this particular department.

"This massively excites me," he told FLW. "The second I saw the news, my reaction was 'wow'.

"We went into the window with our wingers as Demarai Gray and Patrick Roberts, wonderful quality, then we had Lewis Koumas and Keshi Anderson, who have/had been really poor this season. Letting him (Anderson) go was definitely the right call.

"Then you've got Scott Wright, who hasn't played for nearly a year. He's definitely an upgrade on the current crop," Moore claimed.

"Whether he's better than Gray and Roberts, the argument's there that he's got to go and earn the shirt.

"For Blues, if we can come out of this window with a stronger squad than what we had, then it's an upgrade for the squad as a whole.

"He's definitely an upgrade on what we have," our fan pundit continued.

"We're going to come out of this window with four strong wingers, and that takes so much pressure off Roberts and Gray to have to perform.

"I think the pressure on Gray having to perform is why he's injured, because of the amount of games he's played because you can't rely on Koumas.

"I'm very happy with this, hopefully we can get it over the line."

Jeremy Sarmiento would bring strong Championship pedigree to Birmingham City amid Middlesbrough

Despite being just 23 years of age, Sarmiento would provide Davies with a strong Championship pedigree to help Blues' play-off bid.

Indeed, the playmaker has 11 goal contributions in 92 games at this level, and had impressed at both West Bromwich Albion and Ipswich Town in the 2023/24 season, with the second of those loan stints seeing him score some vital goals as the Tractor Boys won automatic promotion.

Despite not quite reaching the same heights last season, the Madrid-born man also won promotion with Burnley, and would hope to source an even greater number of starts upon his expected switch to St. Andrew's, especially with Gray still sidelined with a calf issue until next month to begin with.