Birmingham City are still feeling the effects from Harry Redknapp’s spending last year.
As reported by Birmingham Mail, Birmingham City Football Club is set to announce a substantial financial loss following a year that was full of high spending and managerial uncertainty.
The introduction of veteran manager Harry Redknapp was looked upon as a risky move, despite his lower league success in the past with the likes of Bournemouth and Queens Park Rangers. In the summer transfer window, he certainly made up for lost time by bringing in a staggering 13 new faces, which was a risk that did not really pay off in the early stages of the 2017/18 campaign.
Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited made a statement regarding the expected losses for 2017, primarily focusing on the final six months of the year in comparison to the same time frame from 2016.
This news has certainly raised the question of how beneficial spending sprees end up being in the lower leagues, with many teams struggling to make an impact after throwing their money around in the transfer window.
The gritty, old-school style of play that we so often see in the Championship has caused plenty of problems for foreign players coming over to the league, as they’ve been unable to adapt to the English style of play. Of course, there are moments of magic here and there, but that does not lead to sustained success on the British Isles.
Wolves are the only real example of a team pulling it off successfully, meanwhile Redknapp’s new-look Birmingham left the club on the verge of a relegation battle by the time Steve Cotterill came in to replace him.
When you look down the line of his many incoming transfers, Jota almost certainly stands out as a player who should have made a much bigger impact than he has. For all of his fancy footwork, the Spaniard has not even come close to replicating the form that initially put him on the map at Brentford.
Throwing around money like it is going out of fashion is all well and good when you are stuck behind a screen playing Football Manager, but Redknapp just went too far when attempting to build the Blues into play-off contenders.
As he soon discovered, it does not happen overnight.
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