Huddersfield Town fans have Jay Stansfield-esque dream - Birmingham City should ruin it | OneFootball

Huddersfield Town's mixed start to the season has been lit up by the form of one player, but Birmingham could yet ruin their hopes in the new year.

One of the key players throughout the first half of the 2025-26 season for Huddersfield Town has been on-loan Chelsea prospect Leo Castledine, and Birmingham City could swoop in to end any potential dreams of the playmaker remaining in West Yorkshire on a permanent basis.

A 5-0 win against struggling Port Vale may have lifted Huddersfield Town to within a point of a League One play-off place, but one of their key performers throughout the first half of this season could prove to be a tempting player to others in the January transfer window.

Rookie Terriers manager Lee Grant has been under pressure at points this season, but he's far from the only manager in the EFL in this position and one other manager a division higher could be looking on with interest at one of Grant's star men so far this season.

Birmingham City's 1-1 Boxing Day draw against Derby County meant that pressure remains stacked on the Blues manager Chris Davies, but Huddersfield have one player who could provide a solution for him throughout the second half of this season.

Leo Castledine has earned Championship transfer interest amid Huddersfield Town exploits

Leo Castledine has been one of the hits of the 2025-26 season in League One, with nine goals in 20 League appearances for Huddersfield Town making him the fifth-highest goalscorer in League One, with Lorent Tolaj, David Keillor-Dunn, Yousef Salech and Dom Ballard ahead of him in the top scorers chart.

Castledine scored twice against Port Vale, continuing a stunning December which has seen him score five goals in his last five league games for the club. And this is leading to Huddersfield fans making calls for their club to seek to make his transfer permanent if they can find a way of doing so.

But such goal-scoring form will have attracted the interest of other clubs, particularly as Castledine is not a striker, and the Chelsea player looks like he could be a good fit for the under-fire Birmingham City manager Chris Davies to resolve a conundrum that he's faced all season.

Indeed, recent reports have claimed that clubs in the Championship are eyeing a January move for Castledine, which could be a permanent one with Chelsea open to sanctioning a sale.

That's naturally piqued the interest of Huddersfield supporters, who are keen for the club to launch a hugely-ambitious move to bring his services back up north full-time, but whether such a dream is possible only remains to be seen.

Birmingham City should end Huddersfield Town's Jay Stansfield-esque dream with Leo Castledine transfer raid

Chris Davies hasn't been finding things easy himself recently. Although only promoted from League One at the end of last season, the pressure is on to keep pushing in an upward direction and Birmingham City have stalled of late in the League, with their 1-1 draw against Derby extending their current winless streak to four matches.

And if Birmingham have been lacking anything this season, it's been the creativity going forward that Castledine could offer. Birmingham need a number ten.

Their summer signing of Kanya Fujimoto has clearly not worked out. Fujimoto has only made one very brief league appearance for the club all season, and his only start for them - against Port Vale in the EFL Cup at the end of August - ending in a half-time substitution and ultimately in a 1-0 home defeat for Birmingham.

If anything, we could even see a similar situation play out to what happened with the Birmingham striker Jay Stansfield.

Stansfield couldn't tie down a place in the Fulham team, but although there was interest in him from across the Championship, the Blues got him in on loan in 2023 and then made his transfer permanent for a reported £15 million (rising to £20 million with incentives) a year later, even though the club had just been relegated to League One.

So in short, Birmingham City's financial muscle blew everybody else out the water when it came to Jay Stansfield, and a similar move for Leo Castledine could result in the attacking midfielder heading for St Andrew's by the end of the January transfer window. The Blues could well look to break Huddersfield hearts and carry out a similar maneuver next month. Sheffield