What Demarai Gray said after breaking long-standing Birmingham City feats as reunion draws closer | OneFootball

Gray etched himself into Blues folklore against Reading back in December 2014

Ahead of the club's return to the Championship, Birmingham City are once again generating plenty of discourse through their transfer activity.

Blues are expected to rival the likes of Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton when it comes to acquisitions across the summer, as owner Tom Wagner continues to back Chris Davies in order to eventually end a well-documented lengthy exile from the Premier League.

There is a school of thought that the former Tottenham Hotspur assistant already has the nucleus of a competitive second tier squad at his disposal, with plenty excited to see how the likes of Christoph Klarer, Tomoki Iwata and Jay Stansfield fare next term.

However, improvements are still needed, with the wide areas a main focus for Davies and the recruitment team at St Andrew's @ Knighthead Park. In many ways, their search for experience and quality to bolster their options on the flanks could be concluded very soon, with reports suggesting that Demarai Gray is edging ever closer to returning to this part of the Second City.

Birmingham City nearing Demarai Gray return ahead of Championship season

Gray's previous stint with his hometown club saw Blues find themselves in a very contrasting landscape to the present day, with uncertainty the main theme instead of progression.

The 28-year-old departed Birmingham in January 2016, moving to eventual Premier League champions Leicester for a reported £3.7m after meeting a release clause in his contract.

Gray has gone on to feature for the Foxes, Bayer Leverkusen, Everton and currently plies his trade for Al-Ettifaq of the Saudi Pro League, where he was signed by former Aston Villa head coach, Steven Gerrard, for a reported £10m in the summer of 2023.

He has since made 50 appearances, netting four times and registering just five assists, with Ben Jacobs reporting earlier in the month that Blues had lodged an enquiry to potentially reunite with their former academy graduate amid links to Sunderland and Fiorentina, with the Saudi club setting a valuation of £8m.

It has now been reported by Alan Nixon that Birmingham are closing in on a deal to bring Gray back to St Andrew's, where he previously scored eight times in 78 appearances under Lee Clark and Gary Rowett. And, three of those strikes saw the homegrown talent write himself into club history just under 11 years ago.

How Demarai Gray reacted to smashing long-standing Birmingham City feats with hat-trick v Reading

After making a minimal breakthrough during a difficult 2013/14 campaign for Blues, Gray's first taste of regular minutes came in the 2014/15 season, particularly flourishing after Rowett's appointment in October 2014.

In the former centre-back's first 15 league games in charge, his new chargers only lost twice, winning on eight occasions, with the standout success coming in the form of a 6-1 rout against eventual FA Cup semi-finalists, Reading.

After Paul Caddis gave the West Midlands side an early lead, Gray took matters into his own hands, with a 34-minute first-half hat-trick cancelling out Glenn Murray's 19th-minute equaliser before Andrew Shinnie and David Cotterill put further gloss on proceedings.

Gray's hat-trick saw him become the youngest Blues player to score a hat-trick since the legendary Trevor Francis back in 1971 at the age of 18 years and 169 days, with the aforementioned club icon netting all four goals against Bolton Wanderers at just 16 in his sixth-ever appearance in Royal Blue.

The Frankley native also became the youngest Brummie to score a hat-trick for the club since Francis' attacking partner, Bob Latchford, who achieved such a feat in an EFL Cup tie against Ipswich Town back in November 1973, and he spoke about his pride in doing so to BBC WM at the time.

"It was a nice feeling for myself," Gray said. "I'm a Birmingham boy and I've been at the club since I was 10.

"I know fans like to see local players and playing for the Blues first team means everything to me," he stated.

With it looking increasingly likely that a reunion is on the cards, Blues fans will be extremely excited about the prospect of reuniting with one of their own and a previous Tilton favourite, whilst Gray will hope to aid the club's well-documented aims.

His experience will also be a welcome addition alongside the attacking firepower of Stansfield and Keshi Anderson, who accumulated 15 goal contributions from out wide in the club's record-breaking League One campaign.