It's probably fair to say that Alexander Hleb's loan spell at Birmingham City from Barcelona during the 2010/11 season did not go quite as expected.

In a campaign hampered by injuries, Hleb made just 21 appearances in all competitions for the Blues - missing their League Cup final win over his former club Arsenal - as they suffered relegation from the Premier League, by which point the midfielder had already made it clear he had no desire to return to St Andrew's.

A move back to Arsenal instead appeared to be Hleb's preferred option, but that too failed to materialise, and with game time not forthcoming for the Belarussian at the Nou Camp, he instead joined Bundesliga side Wolfsburg on loan during the 2011 summer transfer window.

But injuries would once again hamper the Belarussian, who made just four appearances for Wolfsburg before his loan came to an end at the turn of the year, something was then followed up with the termination of his Barcelona contract by mutual consent in January 2012.

After is departure from the Spanish giants, Hleb spent the first half of 2012 in Russia with Krylia Sovetov, making a handful of appearances before returning to his native Belarus for the first of four more stints with form BATE Borisov before the end of his career.

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The midfielder spent the next 18 months with BATE, winning the Belarusian league twice, before a year and a half spell in Turkey, where he turned out first for Konyaspor and then Genclerbirligi between January 2014 and August 2015.

Hleb then made his latest return to BATE for a three-month spell at the end of 2015, before returning to Genclerbirligi at the start of 2016. Noticing a pattern yet?

After six months and 12 more appearances for Genclerbirligi, Hleb was then back in Borisov with BATE, picking up another Belarussian title before a move back to Krylia Sovetov - remember them? - in February 2017.

This time, Hleb would make just seven more appearances for the Russians he headed back to BATE for his fifth spell with the club, once again lifting the title with his home country in 2018, before ending his playing association with BATE for good when he joined fellow Belarussian side Isloch mid-way through the 2019 season.

But having made 13 appearances for the Minsk-based club before the end of that campaign, Hleb then finally brought his continent-spanning playing career to an end, when he announced his retirement on the eve of the 2020 season, by which time he had racked a total of 80 international caps for Belarus, although he was unable to guide his country to qualification for a major tournament.

It seems therefore that while Hleb was never keen to stay at Birmingham, the midfielder struggled to really find anywhere to settle after his departure from St Andrew's, meaning you have to feel that the fact his time with the Blues did not last longer, may have been as much down to him, as it is to the club.