Birmingham City are facing a very intense last few months of the campaign as they aim to secure survival in the Championship in what has been a difficult season for the Blues.

Aitor Karanka’s arrival in the summer had been met with initial optimism with the Spaniard someone with plenty of Championship experience and pedigree after taking Middlesbrough to promotion in 2016. However, despite him taking over and Birmingham making several additions to the squad things have not gone in the direction the club were hoping.

The Blues are sitting precariously just above the bottom three and they are only two points clear of 22nd placed Rotherham United. Their situation is made even more difficult by the fact that the Millers also have three matches in hand on them that will be played later on in the campaign.

The fact that they are in a relegation battle in the Championship a decade on from their League Cup success shows how much the club has regressed in that period. During that period there have been many excellent players that have been produced by the club’s academy who have gone on to be sold to other clubs.

Here, we have compiled a list of the top 10 best Birmingham City academy graduates. However, do you agree with the order. Click ‘next’ to start the list…

Kicking off this list is forward Will Grigg who has a current transfer market valuation of around £1.08 million according to Transfermarkt.

Grigg did not make his name at Birmingham City, but he did spend time in the club’s academy before he was eventually released by them in 2007. That saw him take in a spell with Solihull Moor’s youth academy before he eventually got his Football League chance when he joined Walsall in 2008. In his five years with the Saddlers he fired in 27 goals in 99 appearances.

Brentford took a chance on Grigg in the summer of 2013 bringing him in after he scored 19 league goals for Walsall in the 2012/13 campaign. However, things did not work out for him and he scored just four goals in 34 appearances for the Bees in 2013/14. The next campaign saw him burst into to life with 20 league goals in 44 games on loan at MK Dons. Wigan came calling the following summer.

During his four years with Wigan, he made 133 appearances and scored 53 goals, whilst also starring for Northern Ireland in Euro 2016 amid the infamous ‘Will Grigg’s on fire chant.’ Sunderland’s signing of him is also famed by a Netflix documentary and he is currently out on loan back with MK Dons after failing to be on fire for the Black Cats since his move.

Ninth on this list is Sone Aluko and he has gone on to enjoy a lot of success in his career since he left Birmingham where he failed to make a major impact.

Aluko started his career with the Blues, but he would never actually make a first-team appearance at St Andrews. He was instead sent out on loan spells to Aberdeen and Blackpool. The former signed him permanently in the summer of 2008. He went on to score seven goals in 82 appearances for them before moving to Rangers in 2011.

He would last just one campaign with Rangers scoring 12 goals in 21 appearances. That was enough for Hull City to sign him and he was instrumental in two promotion-winning campaigns for the Tigers in his four seasons there. Aluko was a near ever-present for his next club Fulham in 2016/17 scoring eight goals in 45 appearances. However, the following summer he was sold to Reading.

The attacker still remains with the Royals and he has made over 80 appearances for them in the league now, despite having had a spell out of favour and been sent out on loan to Beijing Renhe last term. This season he has two goals to his name in 27 appearances.

Coming in at number eight on this list is Darren Carter with the midfielder having started his career with the Blues and having gone on to enjoy a length career with good spells in the Premier League and the Championship.

Carter came through the ranks at St Andrews and he went on to make 53 appearances for the Blues. He was a reliable performer when he was called upon during the four seasons he spent within the club’s first-team squad. However, eventually he left the club for West Brom in the summer of 2005.

During his first season at West Brom he was part of the side that were relegated from the top-flight in 2005/06 as he made 20 league appearances and scored one goal. The following campaign he helped the club bounce back at the first time of asking making 33 league appearances and scoring three goals for the Baggies.

He then left for Preston in 2007 and went on to make over 100 appearances for the Lilywhites. He has since had spells with the likes of Millwall, Northampton Town and Forest Green Rovers. He is now currently with Solihull Moors where he has been since 2017 and he has made over 130 appearances for the club.

Coming in at number seven in this list is Joe Lolley and the winger current has a transfer valuation of around £3.15 million as well as Butland according to Transfermarkt.

Lolley unlike other players on this list did not manage to make his first-team debut and breakthrough with the Blues, but he did develop in the club’s academy before leaving the club at the age of 16. He had to kick start his career low down the footballing ladder. He made a name for himself with Midland Combination side Littleton where he fired in 88 goals in 83 games.

That would earn Lolley a move to Kidderminster Harriers in 2013 and he was an impressive performer for them in the Conference Premier managing to fire in nine goals in 21 appearances. That saw him attract the attentions of Championship side Huddersfield Town and they swooped for him in January 2014. He went on to make 80 appearances for the Terriers scoring ten goals.

Nottingham Forest brought Lolley in from Huddersfield in January 2018, and the winger has become an integral part of their side since scoring 11 goals and providing 11 assists in the Championship in 2018/19 and then nine goals and eight assists last term. The winger has been less of an attacking force to date this campaign. Could be seen as one that got away for the Blues.

A few years ago Jack Butland might have been higher than sixth on this list, but according to Transfermarkt he now holds a transfer valuation of around £3.15 million. That shows he has perhaps not fulfilled his true potential in his career so far.

Butland emerged as one of the best goalkeeping talents in England when he burst onto the scene first impressing with a loan spell at Cheltenham Town in League Two in the 2011/12 campaign. He made such a positive impression that he was handed his first England cap in August 2012 becoming the country’s youngest-ever starting keeper. He then made his first-team bow at St Andrews.

During the 2012/13 season, Butland was an ever-present for Birmingham, despite there being a lot of speculation surrounding his future and he insisted that he did not want to leave the club and go somewhere he would be the number one choice in goal. He was sold to Stoke City in January 2013, but loaned back to the Blues for the rest of that campaign.

During his seven-season spell with the Potters he had to initially bide his time for a starting place, but he eventually established himself and went on to make well over 150 appearances. However, having fallen out of favour last term he moved to Crystal Palace in the summer where he has been the backup option this term to Vicente Guaita.

Coming in at number five is Demarai Gray and the winger has a current transfer valuation of around £10.8 million according to Transfermarkt. The 24-year-old still has plenty of time left in his career to fully fulfill his potential but has already achieved a lot of success.

Gray burst onto the scenes at St Andrews in 2013 when Lee Clark handed him his debut from the bench in a 4-0 win against Millwall. A month later in November, he made his first start for the club in the league against Charlton Athletic. He made a further five more appearances in the Championship in the 2013/14 campaign and was handed a two-and-a-half year deal during that season.

The following season saw him truly announce himself as a Birmingham star, with the winger firing in six goals in 41 Championship appearances. That saw plenty of clubs sit up and take notice, and after 24 appearances in the first half of the 2015/16 season he left for Leicester City after his £3.7 million release clause was triggered.

During the second half of that campaign, he made 12 appearances as Leicester remarkably won the Premier League title. He was a regular during the next three campaigns, but after falling out of favour under Brendan Rodgers he eventually moved to Bayer Leverkusen in January for an undisclosed fee with his contract running down with the Foxes.

One former Birmingham academy player that went on to enjoy a very strong career in football was forward Andrew Johnson, who started his career with the Blues and spent four years at St Andrews.

Johnson was never able to enjoy the same sort of goal-scoring success with the Blues as he did do elsewhere in his career, but he did manage to score 13 goals for the club in all competitions in 104 appearances. He did though miss a deciding penalty against Liverpool in the 2001 League Cup final which will be something he likely still looks back on with some regret.

The Englishman left the Blues for Crystal Palace as part of a deal that took Clinton Morrison in the other direction. He was a star for the Eagles and managed to score 32 goals for Palace during the 2003/04 campaign as they earned promotion. The following campaign he scored 21 league goals but that was not enough to keep them up. A move to Everton followed in the summer of 2006.

He scored 22 goals in 74 appearances for the Toffees, before moving on to Fulham in 2008 where he scored 27 goals in 112 games. A two-year spell at QPR followed before he finished off his career back with Crystal Palace.

Coming in at third place is Nathan Redmond and the winger currently holds a transfer valuation of around £16.2 million according to Transfermarkt. The 26-year-old has gone on to establish himself as a reliable Premier League performer over the last few years.

Redmond burst onto the scenes with the Blues back in 2010 making his debut at 16-years-old and he was the club’s second-youngest ever debutant when he took to the field against Rochdale in a League Cup tie. The 2011/12 campaign would be his real first-team breakthrough season and he fired in five goals in 24 league appearances as the club missed out on promotion.

The following campaign would be his last at St Andrews and he scored twice in 38 Championship appearances before Premier League Norwich City came calling and paid around £3.2 million for him in the summer of 2013. He enjoyed three seasons with the Canaries scoring 11 goals in 112 appearances.

He moved on to Southampton for around £10 million in the summer of 2016. He has been with the Saints ever since and one his one and only England cap to date in 2017. He is certainly one of the best talents the club has produced.

There will likely be few Birmingham fans that would disagree with Jude Bellingham being amongst the very best players the club have produced via their academy. The midfielder is a rare talent that you do not often come across in the youth setup at a Championship club, but the 17-year-old has burst onto the scene and shown he will be a future star.

Bellingham made 41 appearances for Birmingham’s first team and in that time he showed his class and ability to play at the highest possible level. The midfielder was one of the best players in the Championship at such a young age and it was always going to be inevitable that one of Europe’s top clubs would come calling for him.

In the end, it was Borussia Dortmund who swooped for the Englishman and they paid a fee that could rise up to £30 million for the midfielder last summer. Bellingham has adapted very well to life in Germany and he has already made 20 Bundesliga appearances, getting three assists in those games, and also eight appearances in the Champions League.

The 17-year-old has also already been called up to the England senior squad and it will only be a matter of time before he is a regular for his country.

Coming in at number one in this list, it would be almost impossible not to put Trevor Francis in here as the best player to have ever come through the club’s academy. He enjoyed an exceptional career and achieved success that most players would only dream of. Things all began for him with the Blues and he spent eight years with the club.

Francis would make well over 200 appearances for the Blues during his time with the club after bursting onto the scene in the early 1970’s. He scored one of the club’s most memorable ever goals with a produced a moment of individual brilliance against QPR in 1976. When he departed the club he became Britain’s first-ever £1 million player moving to Nottingham Forest in 1979.

He would go on to score the winning goal in the 1979 European Cup final and then help the Reds win the competition for a second successive campaign the following year. Francis also spent time with the likes of Sampdoria, winning the Coppa Italia with them in 1984/85, Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday. While he also made 52 caps for England scoring 12 goals.

The former Birmingham City man also spent five years in charge as a manager at St Andrews, and also had spells in charge of QPR, Sheffield Wednesday and Crystal Palace.