Exclusive: Birmingham City player told he "has to move on" following Marvin Ducksch acquisition | OneFootball

Lee Hendrie has spoken to FLW about the future of Lyndon Dykes at St Andrew’s.

Birmingham City are expected to be one of the Championship's promotion favourites this season, and their lavish spending has showed no signs of stopping.

Expectations are rising about how far Blues can go this season under the significant investment of Tom Wagner, with St. Andrew’s expected to be a place bursting with atmosphere after their emphatic promotion out of League One last term.

In terms of summer business, Birmingham have been busy throughout, recruiting as many as 11 new players as they aim to build a squad good enough to make the step-up in class to the Championship.

One of their most recent arrivals has been forward Marvin Ducksch, who links up with Chris Davies on a permanent basis from Bundesliga outfit Werder Bremen.

This now means that Blues have Ducksch, Kyogo Furuhashi and Jay Stansfield as starter forward options, and it remains to be seen how they will all fit into Davies' system on a weekly basis.

Another striker still on the books is Lyndon Dykes, but there are questions right now about whether he will earn sufficient game time in such a competitive front-line.

Lee Hendrie expects Lyndon Dykes to leave Birmingham City “very soon”

With this in mind, Lee Hendrie has spoken to FLW about Dykes’ chances this season and whether he thinks he can make an impact over the course of the 2025-26 campaign.

Speaking exclusively to Football League World, former Aston Villa midfielder Lee Hendrie believes that Lyndon Dykes’ future may lie away from St Andrew’s after Blues bolstered their forward department with Marvin Ducksch.

Hendrie said: “I always thought it was going to be a tough season for Lyndon Dykes, and surely he’ll be thinking that he has to move on, particularly with the amount of forwards and strike power they have this season and just adding to that now with the new signing.

“You do feel his exit will certainly be on the cards.

"He wouldn’t have featured last season as much as he would have liked to, so I’m pretty sure you’ll be looking at him and an exit from Birmingham City very soon.”

Stacked forward competition makes Lyndon Dykes, Birmingham City exit likely

Despite Lyndon Dykes amassing 156 appearances in the Championship and looking like an appealing figure to have around the squad, you would have expected to have lighted up in League One last term, but that was far from the case.

The Scottish international only featured 25 times over the course of Blues’ League One title-winning campaign, finding the back of net on just one occasion, with that return providing little optimism that he can step up and be a regular scoring presence back in the Championship.

Mixed with the fact that Blues have shown such a high level of intent to improve the frontline, Dykes’ chances will be even more limited, so it seems best for all parties to secure a deal for him where he can go away to play regularly and be a valued asset.

While Birmingham have every chance of having another successful season, it doesn’t appear the 29-year-old will be at the heart of it.