Lyle Taylor reacts as Troy Deeney's Birmingham City dig resurfaces - "I'm not your competition" | OneFootball

Lyle Taylor has responded to a claim Troy Deeney made when they were teammates at Birmingham City

Lyle Taylor has responded to Troy Deeney over claims the striker made when they were both together at Birmingham City.

Blues have enjoyed a sudden rise over the past few years, which is largely down to Knighthead Capital Management buying into the club in 2023.

Since then, the Second City side have shown huge ambition both on and off the pitch. They attacked the 2024 summer transfer market by making Jay Stansfield the most expensive player in League One history, which subsequently helped them clinch the third-tier title in record-breaking fashion.

Birmingham carried this impressive form in the transfer market into the following year, where they recruited top-flight talent such as Tommy Doyle, Kyogo Furuhashi and Demarai Gray.

Plans were recently revealed for their new 62,000-seat stadium, which has taken inspiration from the Second City’s industrial past.

However, in the not-too-distant past, things were very different at St. Andrew’s.

Lyle Taylor claps back at Troy Deeney’s Birmingham City dig

At the end of the 2021/22 campaign, the mood around Birmingham City was much different from how it is now.

Blues had just avoided relegation from the second-tier, finishing 20th in the overall standings, leaving an uninspired set of supporters wishing for better times.

Troy Deeney had signed for the Second City side that season, with expectations high following his goalscoring record at Watford. However, the striker failed to live up to that hype, netting four times in 21 Championship appearances.

After the season, he did an interview with Birmingham Live, where he decided to defend himself by comparing his contribution to the team with Lyle Taylor’s, who had managed five goals in 14 games.

Deeney said: “It depends on what people’s perspective of it is. If you don’t want me to do well it’s easy to say ‘Oh look, he’s rubbish, he’s finished’. If you want to have an objective spin on it, me and Lyle Taylor played the same amount of games and he scored one more penalty than me and he’s the Messiah and I am the worst thing that’s ever happened to Birmingham City.”

Taylor heard what Deeney had to say and addressed those comments on a recent episode of the Undr The Cosh podcast.

“The dressing room was fine,” stated Taylor. “There was never any issue between me and Troy. We were very much in step because we wanted to achieve the same thing which was to keep the club in the league.

“Troy got a little bit of **** after I'd gone back to Forest and then tried to throw my name in, 'I've scored one less goal than Lyle', or something like that. Why are you bringing me into this? It has nothing to do with me.

“We were fine. I haven't spoken to Troy since, but I doubt there's a problem. I don't think there's a problem; I just didn't really understand why my name got thrown into the conversation when people have said 'You've not scored enough goals'.

“It was like, 'Well I've played this many games more than Lyle and only scored one goal less or two goals less'. Woah... I'm not your competition. We were teammates pulling in the same direction.

“I don't know where that came from. If anyone has got an issue with me, then take it up with themselves because I don't care.”

Lyle Taylor did outperform Troy Deeney during the 2021/22 campaign

Although Deeney may have just been looking to defend himself by talking down on Taylor’s performances, all it may have done is make the striker look worse.

The Chelmsford striker appeared just 14 times for Blues that term, scoring five times, which was a third fewer outings than Deeney managed, which goes against his claim that they played the same number of games.

Being able to outscore the former Watford frontman with considerably fewer opportunities clearly irritated Deeney, as did the praise Taylor was getting for his performances.