Why one Birmingham City star might be privately fuming over Wolves transfer news | OneFootball

Birmingham supporters will be enthused by their club's ambition in the summer transfer market, but that enthusiasm may not be shared by their players.

For Birmingham City's Marc Leonard, the arrival of Tommy Doyle from Wolverhampton Wanderers may not be good news.

With promotion from League One with a record-breaking 111 points and plans pushing ahead for a new, 62,000-capacity stadium, it's fair to say that Birmingham City are ambitious at the moment.

Promotion back to the Championship certainly doesn't seem to be the summit of their ambitions, and the club have been linked with a number of Premier League quality players already this summer.

Tommy Doyle's arrival at Birmingham could spell trouble for Marc Leonard

But while this may be good news for Birmingham fans, it might not be such good news for the players that helped to get them into the Championship in the first place.

One such player could be midfielder Marc Leonard.

Leonard joined the Blues from Brighton in 2024 and made 35 appearances for them in the Championship throughout the 2024-25 season.

But with Birmingham now being closely linked with the Wolves player Tommy Doyle, it might be that Leonard's position in the first eleven could be under threat.

A loan move could make the most sense for Leonard

Tommy Doyle came through the Manchester City academy and has been capped at every international level from the under-15s to under-21s, but he only made one Premier League appearance for them and ended up spending time on loan at Hamburger SV, Cardiff and Sheffield United before going on loan to Wolves in 2023.

Wolves made that loan permanent at the end of the season, and Doyle has made 50 Premier League appearances for them over the last two seasons. But he's now reported to be in talks over a move to St Andrews, and that could be bad news for Marc Leonard, whose position Doyle could comfortably fill.

Football Insider reported at the start of June that Birmingham could be ready to loan him out, and it would make sense from the perspective of game time for him to go.

Leonard may have made 35 appearances for the Blues last season, but only 14 of them were starting appearances, and he only completed a full 90 minutes for them five times.

Doyle's arrival may leave Leonard with a dilemma.

He could, of course, stay and fight for his place. Birmingham are an upwardly-mobile club at the moment, and there could be substantial rewards for staying there.

But players have to be pragmatic in their decision-making, and Leonard may not want to sit warming the bench all season with Doyle occupying his position in the first eleven.

A loan to another Championship club could be an option. With so many managerial changes having taken place at the end of the 2024-25 season, there are a lot of clubs in their rebuilding phase of the year, and Leonard may be better off going elsewhere to prove himself back at Birmingham.

Marc Leonard is a talented player.

He won both the fans' and players' Player of the Season awards for the 2023-24 season at his previous club, Northampton Town.

But he can be forgiven privately fuming if he has to leave the club to get game time this summer, even though strengthening the squad is the right thing for Birmingham to be doing, if they're to fulfill their ultimate ambition of bringing Premier League football back to St Andrew's.