This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Birmingham City are currently 19th in the Championship, but look set to stay in the division comfortably this season.
One bright spark early in the season for Blues was the loan signing of Tahith Chong, who joined on a season-long loan from Manchester United back in August.
Chong instantly impressed in a Birmingham shirt, winning multiple man of the match awards in the first few months of the season, before suffering a groin injury that required surgery in October.
Chong has now returned to the Blues side so we thought we'd ask FLW's Blues fan pundit Tom Oxland whether or not he thinks Birmingham have any chance of signing Tahith Chong permanently in the summer?
"I hope we do. I really do hope we do." Tom told Football League World.
"I'd love it if we brought Chongy back to the club. I'd be delighted.
"Obviously his injury record, it's not great, and we are looking at bringing in players that have better injury records, but I feel like knowing Bowyer, he would probably exempt Chong from that just because of how good Chong was for us in our system for the first half of the season.
"I think it all just comes down to player wages in the end, and, honestly, I don't think we'll be able to afford it.
"And, I think there'll be tough competition out there that will be able to pay the right amount of money, that we can't".
The Verdict
Having impressed so much before getting injured, I'm not surprised to hear our fan pundit Tom say he'd love it if Chong was brought back to the club.
As Tom rightly points out though, there are plenty of factors at play in whether or not it could happen.
The injury record is no doubt a concern, but this could easily be remedied if Chong can stay fit for the remainder of the season, having just returned this weekend.
The biggest stumbling block, as Tom points out, may be the finances behind the move.
Will Birmingham be able to pay the fee that Manchester United want and the wages Chong would command? I'm not so sure.
Perhaps The Blues' best hope is getting the Dutch winger back on another season-long loan.