Birmingham City launch move for “extraordinary” ace

Birmingham City aren’t going to be accused of being dull anytime soon.

Chris Davies and Co. have stormed back into the Championship as big spenders, with £10m solely splashed out on the services of ex-Celtic striker Kyogo Furuhashi, among signing off on another eight summer buys in total.

However, they aren’t having much luck when it comes to securing the signing of Chuba Akpom, with a potential loan-to-buy deal for the ex-Arsenal striker to move to the Blues now up in the air, owing to a last-gasp advance from Ipswich Town.

It’s even being stated that Akpom prefers a switch to Suffolk over relocating to St. Andrew’s, leaving the Blues back at square one when trying to add in another top-quality striker to the camp.

Birmingham ready to relaunch move for striker

Akpom would be an ideal addition to the newly promoted side’s ranks, considering he can boast an impressive 36 strikes in the Championship, with most of those goals finding the back of the net when he was donning Middlesbrough red.

However, Birmingham’s opening day opponents might well be gifted with that wealth of experience, instead. Yet, it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom in Davies’ camp.

An exclusive report by Football League World has revealed that the ambitious second-tier side is now ready to reignite a move for past target Marvin Ducksch to soften this Akpom blow, with a deal falling flat in the first place owing to the German’s injury difficulties.

With Ducksch on the mend, the potent Werder Bremen marksman is now being viewed as a high-priority target again on Birmingham’s shortlist, with the 31-year-old perhaps going down as an even better signing than the former Boro attacker if everything slots into place smoothly.

Why Ducksch could be a better signing than Akpom

After all, while Akpom is the talk of the town at the moment as the main, swirling rumour, he hasn’t always been a deadly striker across his varied career to date.

Indeed, even Akpom’s highest peak at the Riverside Stadium – where he bagged 28 goals in one season during the 2022/23 campaign – had some lows along the way, too, with only five more strikes coming his way for the Teesside club, before then departing for Ajax.

Aside from those flashes of goal-scoring excellence at Boro, Akpom has regularly struggled to be a clinical goal machine, as seen in him only firing home three goals last season for the Dutch giants in Eredivisie action. Across his 41 games in the Dutch top-flight, too, the 29-year-old has squandered a costly 16 big chances.

On the contrary, Ducksch has continued to age like a fine wine in his comfortable surroundings at Bremen, with double digits hammered home by the lethal number seven across his last five seasons in Germany, before just coming unstuck last campaign with nine goals tallied up.

Looking at the table above really does reinforce why Birmingham could be winning themselves a steal by bagging Ducksch for just £1.7m – as other reports suggest – with the lofty Dortmund-born star way out in front with his career goals as well, as seen in his stacked haul of 220 strikes from 459 games. Akpom lags behind on a weak 140, on the contrary.

Moreover, the “extraordinary” 31-year-old – as he’s dubbed by Bremen teammate Mitchell Weiser – would be able to link up with the likes of Jay Stansfield and Demarai Gray to devastating effect, with Ducksch sticking out as a creative machine, when amassing a ridiculous 110 assists, as much as he steals the limelight when finishing off his own chances with ease.

No doubt, Birmingham’s confidence in the transfer market had been slightly dented by the whole Akpom saga.

But, if they were able to pick up Ducksch instead, it would be the perfect way to swiftly brush all this unwanted talk under the carpet.