Birmingham City contract situation helps ease transfer concerns: View

Going unbeaten in all but one of their league games this term and only dropping five points during the 2024/25 campaign thus far, drawing against Reading on the opening day and losing against Charlton Athletic before the international break, the West Midlands club are in a solid situation.

Birmingham City’s Tomoki Iwata and Paik Seung-ho are already looking a class above for the League One leaders.

It would have been easy for a fairly new team to crumble under the weight of the expectations on them, but they have thrived and shown real confidence, and are currently on course to seal a return to the Championship at the first time of asking.

Not only is their squad quality an advantage for them, but the depth they have is also amazing for a League One club, and it would be difficult to see them not returning to the second tier at the end of the season, especially when considering the start they have made.

Birmingham City’s contract situation is ideal

Birmingham only have one player out of contract in 2025, with Lucas Jutkiewicz’s deal set to end next year.

That should help Blues to fend off interest in some of their key first-teamers, including Paik Seung-ho, who recently put pen to paper on a new deal after attracting interest from Sunderland and others in recent months.

Keshi Anderson has also signed a new deal recently, though it’s fair to say that the vast amount of movement in their group during the summer is a big reason why they only have one player out of contract next year.

However, the fact they only have one player out of contract in 2025 is helpful for them in more than one way.

Not only will it help to fend off interest, with clubs wary that they will have to fork out a huge amount for key first-teamers who are on multi-year deals, but it should also help to keep stability at St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park.

The fact they don’t have many players’ contracts expiring in the next year will allow their first-teamers to focus on what’s happening on the game, rather than be distracted by contract talks and their plans for the future. And that can only help on-field performances.

It may also mean that there’s less movement out of the club next summer and if they can retain much of their first team, it could help them to hit the ground running next term, regardless of which division they find themselves in.

Against the Royals on the opening day of this season, they were still getting into their stride and put in an underwhelming effort. That may not happen next term because they are unlikely to have a new-look team, partly because of the club’s contract situation.

For this season though, the most important by-product of their contract position is the fact they are more likely to fend off interest in their players from elsewhere.

There are plenty of top-quality players in their squad who are probably too good for the third tier, so interest in their players may be a worry, but many of these players are tied down to long deals and that puts Blues in a strong negotiating position.

Birmingham City can afford to bide their time regarding Lukas Jutkiewicz

It would be hard to see Jutkiewicz become too worried about his future at this point.

At 35, he knows that he’ll probably only earn one-year contracts now.

He hasn’t featured very regularly this season though and possibly accepts that this may be his last season at the Midlands club.

‘Juke’, however, has been an excellent servant and will want to go out on a good note.

If he can feature on the final day of the season after potentially helping his team to clinch promotion, he would definitely be satisfied with that.

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