This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Rewind’ series, this content strand is where we rewind back to a particular moment at a club, assess the initial reaction from the fans, and then proceed to evaluate and reflect on whether fans were right to react in that way....

Birmingham City have enjoyed a decent start to the season heading into the international break, with Pep Clotet's side in the top half and just four points away from the top six.

Once again, it was a summer of chaos at St. Andrew's, with Garry Monk sacked and his assistant, Clotet, stepping up.

And, with the sale of Che Adams bringing in a significant sum, Blues also spent some money on players in pre-season and one man tasked with replacing Adams' goals was Alvaro Gimenez.

The 28-year-old arrived at Blues in August and came with a good reputation having scored 20 goals in the Spanish second-tier last season for Almeria.

Therefore, he was warmly received by the fans, as we can see for our latest FLW Rewind...

However, that optimism will have eased somewhat with the striker enduring a pretty tough start to life in English football.

It has to be stressed that Gimenez's game isn't all about scoring goals. He is a very hard worker, he is clever with his movement and you can imagine that he is a player that his teammates love having in the XI.

But, the simple fact is that he was signed to score goals to help Blues up the league and a return of just one in nine games is not good enough, no matter what his other contributions are.

Of course, that can change and we have seen players at all levels struggle when they are adapting to a new league, culture and way of playing, so it's far too soon to dismiss Gimenez as a failure.

Nevertheless, if Blues are to make this as memorable a season that some had outside hopes of back in August, then they need the Spaniard to start adding goals to his game to help the side close the gap on the play-offs.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments below.

 

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