Exclusive: Birmingham City urged to "invest" as Sky Sports pundit issues Championship play-off prediction | OneFootball

Lee Hendrie believes Blues will likely have to target consolidation next season.

Birmingham City look set to be crowned champions of League One, potentially in a matter of weeks.

The Blues have raced into a nine-point lead over their nearest challengers, Wrexham, and they even have two games in hand on the side from North Wales.

Chris Davies’ men have lost just three league games all season and will surely now have their sights set on collecting the 21 points that they need to break the League One points record – a tally of 103 set by Wolves back in 2013/14.

Such has been the Blues’ dominance in the third tier this term, discussions have long since turned towards how they may fare in the Championship next season.

Lee Hendrie believes Birmingham will need to consolidate

With promotion back to the Championship ahead of next term almost a formality at this point, focus has already switched to what the next few years could look like for Birmingham.

The potential of back-to-back promotions has been talked about around the EFL, with many believing Blues have what it takes to instantly compete for the play-offs in the Championship.

However, Lee Hendrie believes next season could be more about consolidating their position after an immediate return to the second tier.

Speaking exclusively to Football League World, the former Aston Villa and England man said: “I think Birmingham City being play-off contenders straight away after going back into the Championship will be a big ask for them. There will be teams coming out of the Premier League that will have strengthened. It looks like the teams that have gone up are going to come back down again.

“They’ve strengthened, as lots of teams do, which is going to make it hard for Birmingham. I think this will be more of a stepping stone for them – it would be a really difficult ask to go and compete for back-to-back promotions.

“They’re going to have to invest, which I think they will do. The owners are very driven to take the football club forward. I think this next season will be more of a stepping stone to push for a play-off spot the season after – I think they’d be more than capable of doing that with the owners and the staff that they have there.”

Birmingham should have the finances to stay up with ease next season

It’s important to remember that Birmingham getting promoted to the Championship is totally different to some of the teams we have seen promoted in recent years.

They are very much a sleeping giant of English football, who arguably never should have fallen into League One in the first place.

Now that they have owners in place who are committed to driving the club forward and making constant progress on and off the pitch, the Blues will likely be a very dangerous proposition to the other Championship teams over the next few years.

They have already flexed their financial muscles in the transfer market this season. Although Jay Stansfield was the signing that caught the headlines by demolishing the League One transfer record, the Blues also broke that record twice last summer, before the Stansfield deal was even concluded.

Given the quality that is already littered across their squad, and with Davies surely receiving strong backing during the summer window, it is hardly surprising that battling relegation next term isn’t even a possibility that is being spoken about.

And, while a play-off push may ultimately prove to be a step too far, Blues fans can surely expect their side to finish safely in mid-table (at worst) and prepared to push for a Premier League return from there.