"By the time we're in the Premier League" - Birmingham City, Jay Stansfield claim made | OneFootball

FLW's Birmingham City fan pundit believes star striker Jay Stansfield is already a Premier League quality player

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more...

Birmingham City striker Jay Stansfield has been hailed as a "Premier League quality player" amid a stunning campaign with the League One title hopefuls.

Stansfield spent the duration of the 2023/24 campaign on loan with Blues from Fulham and caught the eye in spite of the side's eventual relegation to League One, scoring on 12 occasions. His future was a hot topic all summer, but it was big-spending Birmingham who ended up winning the race by forking out a significant sum for his services on deadline day.

Initial reports suggested Chris Davies' side paid £20 million for Stansfield. Those suggestions were disputed in a subsequent report from BirminghamLive, although it did note the sum remains in excess of £10 million, rendering it a League One record by some margin.

There have been no shortage of discourse surrounding Birmingham's decision to become the first third-tier side to stump up an eight-figure outlay on a single player, though such discussions have since quietened in what has been a sensational campaign for both the club and Stansfield.

The 22-year-old is League One's joint-top scorer with 16 strikes from just 23 appearances and is also closing in on the 20-goal mark across all competitions.

Birmingham are now nine points clear at the summit of the league table with just 17 matches to spare and a game in hand over second-placed Wycombe Wanderers, meaning an unsurprisingly-swift return to the Championship appears imminent alongside potential short and long-term vindication for their bold summer spending on Stansfield.

Premier League claim made on Birmingham City's Jay Stansfield

Few doubted the impact that the former Exeter City loan star would make in League One, but his ability to re-transition to the Championship and even potentially the Premier League is becoming an increasingly-intriguing topic of discussion.

Indeed, both Alan Shearer and Gary Lineker both recently suggested Stansfield may already be too good for the Championship, where Birmingham are poised to be playing their football come August, while Carlton Palmer also weighed in on the discussion when speaking exclusively to FLW.

FLW decided to poke the question to our resident Bluenose fan pundit, Mike Gibbs, to collect his thoughts on whether Stansfield is a Premier League quality player. Mike believes Stansfield is just that already, and he is excited to see just how good the striker could be when the time comes for Blues to return to the top-flight.

"Yeah, I do think he's a Premier League quality player," Mike told FLW.

"I mean before he even moved to Blues on deadline day, he'd been on the bench for Fulham and came on a few times so he's shown he can play at that level. I think even before the loan to Birmingham, he'd played a few games.

"I think he is Premier League quality, and he's only going to get better and better. He's still only young, only 22, so he's going to get better over time.

"Hopefully he grows with the club and by the time we're in the Premier League, fingers crossed, he's a top end of the Premier League player,"

Jay Stansfield was a long-term investment by Birmingham City

At the time Stansfield completed his return to the Second City, many questioned just why Birmingham had decided to spend so lavishly on a player in the third-tier of English football.

But it's important to note the signing of Stansfield was in line with Birmingham's lofty long-term ambitions, which are headed up by the likes of Tom Wagner and Tom Brady with the eventual vision of turning the League One side into a juggernaut of the domestic game.

Stansfield is arguably one of the most promising young centre-forwards in the country and was never acquired solely to direct Blues out of the third-tier trapdoor.

Firing Blues to promotion should merely just be the start for Stansfield, who is good enough to eventually become a star in the top-flight.

Akin to Birmingham, he too will face something of an acid test next season with the significant step-up to the Championship. At this rate, though, it's one you would expect all connected with the club to take to like a duck to water, with promotion sure to be on Blues' minds once they seal their way out of League One.