Businessman Paul Richardson has reassured talkSPORT journalist Tom Ross that his bid to take control of Birmingham City is on track, with the reporter breaking this news on Twitter yesterday evening.

This reassurance comes after yesterday's update from Neil Moxley, who said both Richardson and Maxi Lopez currently don't have the sufficient funds at their disposal to get a deal over the line and had recently missed a deadline.

The duo were set to make a hefty down payment earlier this week but it's currently unclear whether the appropriate funds were submitted, with this being an important stage of the takeover process.

Richardson and Lopez were previously believed to be on course to take Vong Pech's 21.64% stake at St Andrew's before taking full control of the West Midlands outfit as part of a two-year plan after agreeing a £36.5m deal.

Yesterday's update from Moxley has cast doubt over that though, with takeover talk dominating matters at the club throughout the summer with Laurence Bassini failing in his quest to get a deal over the line before Richardson and Lopez stepped in.

However, Ross has revealed that the former has reassured him about the potential takeover, saying that they were waiting on the EFL at this stage with no major problems seeming to be encountered.

Richardson also revealed that he was going to be at St Andrew's for tonight's match against Huddersfield Town, with both sides looking to get their first league win of the 2022/23 campaign.

The Verdict:

This is a very frustrating saga for all and many Birmingham supporters will be hoping to get this deal done as quickly as possible so they can focus purely on matters on the pitch.

There are still a couple of areas manager John Eustace would want to address, so sufficient backing needs to be there for the former QPR assistant head coach to get those agreements over the line.

A failure to provide this backing may mean the Midlands outfit are consigned to another relegation battle - because they simply can't go into the Autumn period with a shortage of options if they want to kick on this term.

Stability and signings are the two things they need right now and the former can only be in place if off-field matters are dealt with, so deadlines need to be met by Richardson and Lopez.

Many people will be keeping their fingers crossed that they have made that hefty down payment earlier this week - because that would be a show of real commitment and yet another breakthrough in the takeover process.