Birmingham City exits for Klarer and Iwata raised as "biggest fear" | OneFootball

Birmingham City have been urged to ensure they can keep both Christoph Klarer and Tomoki Iwata in this summer's transfer window.

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 head into the 2025/26 Championship campaign tipped up as one of the pre-season favourites to go and challenge for automatic promotion.

The Blues set a new all-time EFL points record last season as they romped to the League One title, under the management of Chris Davies, with the big spending backing of Tom Wagner.

They have once again been busy in this summer’s transfer window, but appear some way off having all of their business wrapped up and concluded.

Birmingham’s biggest fears in the transfer window

As they aim to build a squad that can challenge for the top two and automatic promotion, Chris Davies has a bit more work to do, but there are also some other elements, such as keeping players, that remain of paramount importance.

As FLW’s Birmingham City Fan Pundit Jason Moore has explained, Blues must ensure they also keep hold of key men such as Christoph Klarer and Tomoki Iwata, as well as still recruiting.

Jason says: “To be fair, transfer window wise, I think we’ve had a really, really solid transfer window.

“The only fears I’ve got would be that we desperately need to get a right winger, unless there’s something that Chris Davies knows that we can’t see, but I still think we need a right winger.

“My biggest fear is if we lose one member of the spine of the team, mainly being for me if we were to lose Christoph Klarer or Tomoki Iwata.

“Both are absolutely incredible assets, and they do an incredible amount of dirty work, especially Iwata. They probably aren’t the best on the ball, but the work he does off the ball for the team and getting the ball back, and giving it to more creative players is so underrated.

“That would be one, if we lose one of them two then we become a lot weaker. I can’t see either of them going, but that would be my big fear, losing one of them two.”

Busy summer for Birmingham so far

Having spent a lot of money in League One last year, including breaking the club’s record transfer fee to sign Jay Stansfield from Fulham, they have continued to be bold and brash in this market.

It appears as though they are set to miss out on Ajax attacker Chuba Akpom, with Ipswich Town hijacking the Blues’ deal, but even being in for the former Middlesbrough man is a statement of intent from Wagner and the club.

Birmingham begin their campaign against Ipswich at St Andrew’s this weekend, and there will be a lot of excitement from neutrals, with both sides tipped up to being among the title contenders this season.

Chris Davies has done an excellent job so far at Birmingham, but, even after a busy summer transfer window, there is still some more work to be done as they target back-to-back promotions, and a return to the Premier League.