Birmingham City will feel like they were robbed by paying £500k for 2009 signing: View | OneFootball

Highlights

The 2008/09 season is one that on the whole, will be fondly remembered by those of a Birmingham City persuasion.

Going into the campaign, the Blues were looking to bounce back from relegation from the Premier League the season before.

That is something they did in near-perfect fashion, as they claimed a second place finish to secure an immediate promotion back to the top-flight of English football.

Courtesy of that promotion, the Blues would then enjoy two more consecutive seasons in the Premier League, during which time they delivered the famous League Cup title.

But despite that, not every decision that Birmingham City made during that 2008/09 Championship promotion campaign, proved to be the right one.

A costly January signing

The 2009 January transfer window saw Birmingham bring in a number of players, no doubt with the hope of getting over the line in the battle for promotion.

One of those signings to arrive at St Andrew's during that winter window was Carlo Costly, with the striker joining from Polish side GKS Belchatow.

Birmingham signed Costly on a loan deal until the summer of 2009 - with an option to buy - paying a reported £500,000 loan fee to secure his services for that period.

The Honduran made the move to Birmingham having amassed what was in all honesty an underwhelming record with his parent club, where he had scored just 16 goals in 71 league games.

Such a record is far from convincing for a striker, suggesting this was a somewhat risky move for Birmingham to make, and it certainly turned out that way.

Birmingham got no return on striker investment

Having completed his move to the Midlands, Costly never got going during his time with the Blues.

During his time with Birmingham, the Honduras international managed to make just eight appearances for the club.

Of those eight outings, only three were as a starter, and Costly did not complete a full 90 minutes in any of those matches.

In the brief period he was on the pitch, the striker also failed to make much of an impact regardless, failing to score or provide an assist in a promotion-chasing side.

Indeed, having had that run of games between February and March 2009, Costly then did not feature in any of Birmingham's last eight games of that particular campaign, as the Blues got over the line to secure their return to the Premier League.

That too, is arguably something of a damning reflection on how his potential use to the side was viewed by those at St Andrew's at that point.

Given that record that the striker produced, it is hard to feel as though any of that promotion success Birmingham enjoyed in 2008/09, was done thanks to the contributions of Costly himself.

With that in mind, it was no surprise to see that come the summer of 2009, the club did not take up the option to sign the striker on a permanent deal.

But even with that, the fact that they did have to pay a loan fee for the temporary signing of Costly means that this is still a signing they lost money on, that could have been better used elsewhere.

So with that in mind, it seems as though this particular bit of transfer business for Birmingham City, was the same in name, as it turned out to be in nature.