Again Birmingham City’s Jay Stansfield Deal “Collapsed” The Blues Coach Eying Another EFL Striker

Jay Stansfield latest, players for sale and ones to watch – Birmingham City transfer state of play

Birmingham City are facing up to the prospect of missing out on Jay Stansfield after the striker featured in Fulham’s opening day defeat to Manchester United.

Stansfield was a late substitute for Fulham at Old Trafford to rack up his fourth Premier League appearance. The 21-year-old has his work cut out to force his way into Fulham’s line-up with Rodrigo Muniz and Raul Jimenez currently Marco Silva’s preferred options at centre-forward.

But Silva is adamant that Fulham have no plans to let Stansfield leave – on loan or permanently – before the end of the transfer window. A defiant Silva said: “Everything that we planned for Jay in the last two seasons – and this is going to be the third – happened. Last season in the Championship he was one of the best players at Birmingham and scored the goals we expected him to score. There has been a lot of approaches from Championship clubs but I have decided he is going to be part of our squad.

“In Portugal he didn’t play because he had a small issue in one training session and we had to protect him. Last Saturday he played two friendlies, one in the afternoon against Hoffenheim and he played in the morning too. I can say to you he scored as well. He is going to be a player for Fulham football club. There is nothing more to say. We can keep receiving approaches, OK, but our idea is to keep him in our squad.”

Blues have been forced to back off in their pursuit of last season’s 13-goal loan favourite. It would take some U-turn from this point for the Cottagers to sell Stansfield.

Chris Davies was asked about Stansfield for the second time this summer after Saturday’s win over Wycombe and said: “They’ve conceded a goal and they thought he could come on and nick an equaliser, probably because he’s a really good goal scorer.

“There’s no update from my side. He’s obviously a player that did excellently here last season and a very good player and that’s all there is to it for now.”

Blues will assess other targets in their quest to find a third striker to compete with Alfie May and Lukas Jutkiewicz. In addition to a forward, Blues are also in the market for a central defender and a midfielder

One foot out the door

After 11 new arrivals there is expected to be some outgoings in the final two weeks of the transfer window. There is no route back for Manny Longelo and Juninho Bacuna after long, drawn out transfer sagas.

My understanding is that both were close to a move that didn’t materialise,” explained Davies. “Hopefully in the next two weeks that will be settled and taken care of and they can move on to new challenges.”

George Hall is another player Davies is willing to shed from his squad. The idea of loaning Hall out was mooted at the beginning of pre-season and Davies now expects him to depart. At this stage, a permanent exit cannot be ruled out either

Siriki Dembele’s omission from Blues’ squad for the trip to Wycombe also throws his future at the club into doubt. Dembele was hooked against Reading after a poor 45 minutes, unused at Charlton and ignored for Wycombe. Nobody would be surprised if one of Dembele’s Championship suitors acted on their interest and Blues have already the succession planned with the signing of Ayumu Yokoyama.

One to watch is Koji Miyoshi who, as we reported a few weeks ago, has attracted interest from a number of clubs. It would take a favourable offer to persuade Blues to sell Miyoshi with Davies a fan of the Japanese winger.