Birmingham City must have new January transfer priority after Blackburn defeat: View

Birmingham City‘s joy of winning their first game under Wayne Rooney this past weekend was only temporary, as somewhat normality resumed when they travelled to Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday night.

Jordan James’ late winner at St. Andrew’s on Saturday afternoon finally brought some respite for Rooney after a tough start to his time in the Midlands as Blues boss, but he would have wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole at Ewood Park.

City went into the half-time break at 0-0 probably feeling confident that they could perhaps even nick all three points, but within 14 second half minutes, the game plan went out of the window.

Two Sammie Szmodics goals and a James Hill strike saw Jon Dahl Tomasson’s side 3-0 up after 59 minutes in a short spell that probably made Rooney furious.

Siriki Dembele did his best to get Birmingham back into the match with a brace, but Harry Leonard’s stoppage time finish saw all three points go to the Lancashire side, with City heading back down the M6 empty-handed.

The post-match inquest will probably see one man panned for his performance though, and that is John Ruddy.

John Ruddy’s Birmingham City performances – have they gotten worse?

The veteran goalkeeper was very good last season in-between the sticks, but the first few months of this season have perhaps showed that his effectiveness is dwindling.

For Szmodics’ first Blackburn goal of the night, Ruddy was too far off his line, allowing the Championship’s top scorer to chip the ball into the back of the net from outside the box, although there was little that he could do for the second of the night as the attacking midfielder yet again dinked the ball over his onrushing body.

Ruddy will be incredibly disappointed with Hill’s goal however as he somehow let the Bournemouth loanee’s long-range strike, which didn’t appear to be that powerful, into the back of the net via the palms of his hands.

Looking at his stats, Ruddy has already conceded the same amount of goals from outside the box than he did in the whole of last season, and although his saves per game have increased, his goals conceded per game have also gone up too, and his goals prevented figure of -6.7 shows that he should’ve done better on quite a few.

The 37-year-old’s performance obviously poses a massive question to Rooney and his staff ahead of the January transfer window, and that is – does a new goalkeeper need to be the top of the club’s agenda for the start of 2024?

How desperately do Birmingham City need a new goalkeeper?

Many Birmingham fans would say that a new striker is very important considering their lack of goals from that area so far this season – Fulham loanee Jay Stansfield has been exciting and has scored five times in the Championship but he doesn’t always lead the line, whilst Scott Hogan and Lukas Jutkiewicz have been incredibly disappointing and their time at the club could be coming to an end soon.

Garry Cook has discusses the prospect of Birmingham City moving from St. Andrew’s in the future.

And yes, a new centre-forward should be high up on Rooney and the recruitment team’s priorities, but now Ruddy is showing that a goalkeeper needs to be perhaps higher than that.

Jack Butland was linked with a return to Birmingham not long after Rooney’s arrival at the club, which may show that the 38-year-old has always intended to bolster that area of the pitch as soon as he can, but he is Rangers’ first-choice stopper and will cost a lot of money, so Birmingham will need to look elsewhere.

Where that will be remains to be seen, but it feels like Ruddy’s time has come to be relegated to the substitutes bench and for Birmingham to get someone younger and more agile in, and someone who can sweep up from the back considering the way Rooney likes his teams to play.

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