A potential move for South Korea international Paik Seung-ho to Birmingham could well suit Blues fans in the short-run – but a domino effect could give them a sinking deja-vu feeling in the future.
Seung-ho, 26, currently features for K-League outfit Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors – after two spells in Europe with Spanish outfit Girona and German outfit Darmstadt.
With 15 caps for his country and an increased profile after spells in La Liga and the 2. Bundesliga, the midfielder has been linked with a move to the Second City and would be a solid coup for the Midlands outfit.
But should he join, it could overload Birmingham’s midfield options – and that could lead to yet more heartbreak for Tony Mowbray’s side in the future.
History may repeat itself
Blues fans were sorry to see teen prodigy Jude Bellingham leave the club for Borussia Dortmund in a £25million deal back in 2020, but it has since become blindingly obvious that the Championship was no match for the youngster.
He’s been top of the goalscorer charts in La Liga for a number of weeks after joining Real Madrid in the summer, and with England likely to hang their hopes on the midfielder for Euro 2024, Birmingham fans should feel incredibly proud of the player they created.
Nonetheless, he all but had a ready-made replacement in younger brother Jobe.
The midfielder made his debut for the Blues in January 2022, and looked to be a decent replacement for Jude, and whilst he would do extremely well to match the precedent that his older brother has set for himself, 22 league games last season saw Jobe ready to kick on and impress at St. Andrew’s.
But a shock move to Sunderland in the summer gave Blues fans that same sinking feeling for when Jude left; once again, a young talent tipped for an extremely bright future left the club and Blues fans were gutted.
If Paik Seung-ho does make the move to Birmingham after links earlier in the week, it would mean an increase in competition and therefore less minutes for those competing in the midfield contingency.
As a result, it could see Birmingham aim to boost their coffers once again and the option for that would be to accept a January deal for James.
Generally, January windows bring about higher transfer fees with clubs either desperate to land targets for a higher price, coupled with selling clubs holding buyers to ransom – and the Blues could look to take advantage of that.
It wouldn’t be ideal for the fans, but they’ve dealt with such a setback before and a huge fee for James may not be the worst idea in the world with promotion all but off the cards following Wayne Rooney’s spell as boss.
