Birmingham City sit top of the League One table with games in hand on their rivals. After a miserable period in the shadow of their rivals Aston Villa, the Blues are on the comeback trail.
Last season was grim for Birmingham City supporters. After flirting with relegation from the Championship for seven seasons, the inevitable finally happened and they dropped into the third tier for the first time in 30 years.
Losing nearly half (22) of their 46 league games, Birmingham were relegated to League One despite winning 1-0 on the final day against Norwich City. Across 2023-24, the Blues saw six different managers take charge of games, three of whom were caretakers, in what was a season of chaos. The disappointing reign of Wayne Rooney after sacking John Eustace was the nadir, with the England legend securing just two wins in 15 games across his spell at the club.
To make matters worse, Birmingham’s bitter rivals Aston Villa were having their best season in 31 years a few miles north, qualifying for the UEFA Champions League for the first time. But the less said of that in this feature, the better.
The last time Birmingham were a third-tier club was back in 1994-95, but it saw them win the title after only one year in the division and begin a renaissance. That rise eventually saw them progress to the Premier League via the play-offs in 2002 after three successive play-off disappointments beforehand. Based on their feats so far this season, they’re odds-on to replicate the first part of that story, at least.
The Blues have made their best ever start to a league season, with their 63 points from 27 matches three more than in 1893-94 and 1902-03 when converting to three for a win. This is also only the third time they’ve won at least 19 of their opening 27 league games in a campaign after those two campaigns over 120 years ago.
Looking specifically at third-tier history in England, Birmingham’s efforts this term have seen them record the joint third most points at this stage of a season. They’ve equalled Charlton Athletic’s accomplishments from 2011-12 (63 points), while they trail only Wigan Athletic in 2002-03 (65) and Reading in 1985-86 (64) in the rankings. All three of those clubs went on to seal the league title that season.
One target will be to break the third-tier record for league wins in a single season, which stands at 32 set back in 1971-72. They have 19 games to record 14 more wins to overtake that tally, which would be made all the more sweeter by knowing the team who currently hold the record are Villa.
Speculate to Accumulate
Financial power has had a lot to do with Birmingham’s upturn in fortunes on the pitch this season, there’s no avoiding that. Their outlook is finally beginning to brighten after Tom Wagner and Knighthead Capital acquired a large stake of the club in May 2023. NFL legend Tom Brady joined him as a minority owner a few months later to make a further statement of intent.
Wagner and Knighthead have committed eye-watering sums to build a sports quarter in the east of the city, which will include a new ‘super stadium’ for the club that they hope to have built and hosting matches by 2029.
It’s not only off the pitch that vast amounts of money have been spent, either. Over £30 million was reported to have been invested in the playing squad by the end of August, including a League One record transfer of striker Jay Stansfield on a permanent basis from Fulham for a rumoured £10m. Other signings such as defender Christoph Klarer from German side Darmstadt and Willum Willumsson from Eredivisie club Go Ahead Eagles came in for over £3m each, too.
But you often have to speculate to accumulate, and the financial gamble looks like paying off for Birmingham as they surge towards promotion back to the Championship at the first opportunity.
On the face of it, it wasn’t a gamble signing Stansfield permanently after his loan spell at the club produced 12 Championship goals last season, but the fee was one that caused ripples in the EFL. The money seems well worth spending now, after he’s scored 14 goals in 21 games to help them get to the top of the table – and he’s still only 22 years old.
While the first-team struggled in 2023-24, their academy was beginning to flourish. Last season saw Birmingham reach the final in both the Under-21 and Under-18 levels of the Professional Development League for the first time ever, losing at U21 level against Sheffield United but winning the U18 final 3-2 versus Charlton.
True, Brandon Khela – now on loan at Bradford City – is the only player to have come through their academy and made a league appearance for the club this season, but Birmingham City have a history of giving young talent a chance and making the most out of doing so.
Of course, Jude Bellingham was given his first-team debut at the club aged just 16 years and 38 days old back in August 2019 before moving to Borussia Dortmund for £25m a year later. But Bellingham isn’t the first to have come out of Birmingham’s academy and gone on to play top-level football in recent times – Nathan Redmond, Demarai Gray, Jordan James and Jack Butland are four such names to have come through, while Jude’s brother Jobe looks like being the next to reach to top level.
Dominance With the Ball
Birmingham have been a dominant force across the whole season, not only in the league table.
They average more possession than any other League One side (66.7%), have the biggest positive goal differential (+27) and have the best difference between expected goals (xG) for and expected goals against (+18.4).
With those stats in mind, it comes as a surprise to see the underlying data from their match-by-match performances award them 14 points fewer in the expected points table than in reality.
Their overperformance of expected points (13.9) is lower than only fellow promotion-chasing Wrexham (15) in League One this season. So, what’s the reason for this?
Our expected points model simulates the number of goals scored by each side in each match based on the xG value of every shot taken. It then uses the simulated number of goals to determine the match outcome (win/draw/loss). Each match is then simulated 10,000 times. The expected points for every team in each match can then be calculated based on the proportion of simulations they win/draw/lose.
Of course, this isn’t an exact science, as xG data doesn’t account for many factors, such as game state and dangerous periods of possession that don’t lead to shots.
On a basic level, there’s an element of fortune to some of Birmingham’s results this season. They’ve picked up nine points (W2 D3 L2) from the seven games in which they’ve had a lower xG total than their opponents; and, across the eight tight matches in which Birmingham’s xG has been no more than 0.73 higher than their opponents’, they have won every single time. Fortune favours the brave.
That’s a very top-level overview of why they may have had some luck come their way this season, but a crucial consideration of those statistics is game state. Birmingham just don’t go behind in games that often, spending only 10% of match time in a losing position. They also spend more time in a winning position than any other side (46%). That’s obviously played a part in their success.
Chris Davies’ side have been behind at some stage in 10 of their 27 league matches this season but crucially only failed to get at least a point from two of those games. Overall, they have won a league-high 20 points from losing positions in 2024-25, so even when they aren’t ahead, they have a pretty good success rate of coming away with something.
Holding onto a winning position against Birmingham is tricky, as they are such a dominant side with the ball. They suffocate opponents with possession in good areas of the pitch, too.
Davies has been clear in the past that he likes his sides to have a lot of the ball. In an interview with The Coaches’ Voice back in the summer of 2023, he stated that “controlling the game with the ball will always be central to my philosophy, but I want a degree of tactical flexibility to adapt to different opponents and different situations.”
That control has led to meaningful possession too, with Birmingham having the ball in dangerous areas of the pitch rather than spending time passing it around the defence.
Field tilt measures territorial dominance between teams, looking at the share of possession each side has in their attacking third compared to their opponents. A field tilt of over 50% means your team makes more passes in the opposition’s final third than they make in your defensive third. Birmingham’s field tilt this season is 67.8%, more than 10 percentage points higher than any other side in the division (Stockport County: 57.5%).
In possession, their build-up is slow to move upfield in open-play, while they average the most passes in open-play passing sequences (3.95) and the longest average sequence time in League One (10.1 seconds).
Despite not progressing upfield at speed (the third slowest behind Crawley and Wigan), they still make the fourth-most average progress upfield per sequence in open play (11.2m). Slow and steady (nearly) wins the race, basically.
What makes Birmingham so good is that not only are they dominant with the ball, but they are also an absolute nightmare for opponents without it.
Intensity Out of Possession
Opposition teams haven’t seen a lot of the ball in games versus Birmingham this season. Across the top four tiers of English football, sides average fewer successful passes overall (187.9) and successful passes in the opposition’s half (83.6) against the Blues than any other team.
No side in the EFL have averaged as many high turnovers per game as Birmingham this season (8.6), and only three Premier League clubs can better that record (Arsenal, Spurs and Man City). Davies, who was formerly senior assistant coach at Tottenham under Ange Postecoglou has clearly taken some inspiration from his former Australian mentor regarding pressing high up the pitch, but with more positive results.
Only 16 players have made at least 25 high turnovers in League One this season, and three of those are Birmingham midfielders: Paik Seung-ho (30), Tomoki Iwata (29) and Willumsson (25). The latter pair were brought into the club last summer, with Davies’ need for high-intensity and energetic midfielders financially backed by his board.
Birmingham’s pressing intensity in the opposition’s half is further displayed by their low PPDA (average opposition passes per defensive action) this season in league competition. Essentially, the lower the figure, the fewer passes you allow your opponents before you engage with a defensive action.
Across England’s top four tiers in 2024-25, the Blues’ PPDA is the lowest of all 92 teams (8.3) by almost one pass (Salford City second with 9.2). Again, this is not too dissimilar to Tottenham’s Premier League-leading 9.4 average.
Opponents have struggled to string any kind of open-play passing sequences together against Birmingham in the league this season, with the Blues consistently breaking up any long possessions.
No side in League One have allowed their opponents fewer passing sequences of 10+ passes in open play this season than Birmingham (49), while only seven of those have led to a shot or a touch in their box – the lowest total across the 92 teams in England’s top four tiers. Even when Birmingham let you have the ball, it’s near impossible to get it into dangerous areas of the pitch.
Promotion Guaranteed?
Having two games in hand on nearest rivals Wycombe and Wrexham certainly helps. Win both of those games and Birmingham could hold a 10-point lead over the Chairboys at the top of League One.
The Opta supercomputer is very bullish on their promotion hopes, with the Blues going up automatically (top-two finish) in 99.8% of the latest 10,000 season simulations and winning the title in 95.8% of them.
As things stand, Birmingham are projected to finish the season on 103 points, which would see them win 40 points in their final 19 league games – an average of 2.11 points per game, lower than their current PPG average after 27 matches (2.33).
Just five clubs have ever reached 103 points in an EFL season (based on three points for a win), with Wolves (103 in 2023-14) the only one to do so in the third tier. The record in an EFL season is 106, set by Lincoln (adjusted for three points for a win) in the 1975-76 fourth tier and equalled by Reading in the 2005-06 Championship season.
The signs are good. The future looks bright. The renaissance is well underway.
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