Birmingham City: New Premier League claims made on Tommy Doyle and Kyogo Furuhashi | OneFootball

Blues have signed two wonderful players who were wanted by much higher-ranking clubs than them.

New Birmingham City additions Tommy Doyle and Kyogo Furuhashi both turned down opportunities to join Premier League teams in favour of a move to St Andrew's.

There is no secret about what Blues' plans are now that they are back in the Championship. They're going to have a 62,000-seater stadium to fill come the next decade, and it's going to look a bit out of place in the second tier if they fail to make the next step-up to the top flight.

Signings like Doyle, Kyogo, Demarai Gray and others signify the club's intent to move up the English footballing pyramid as fast as possible.

Birmingham beat Premier League teams to two summer signings

Given the quality of players that have been added to Chris Davies' squad this summer, they've done it at a fairly moderate spending rate. That's certainly the case when you compare it to what they forked out for transfer targets last summer - a reported £20-25 million - while in League One.

Recruitment plans are already in place for if/when Birmingham make their long-awaited return to the Premier League, according to Mail Sport. This ambition, according to the national outlet, is what drove their new Japanese number nine to choose a move to the League One champions over a crack at the first division.

Birmingham paid £10.3 million for the former Celtic and Rennes centre-forward, as per L'Équipe. His experience in competitions like Ligue 1 and the Champions League should massively benefit Davies' side, whose play-style is influenced by the winners of both those trophies last season, Paris Saint-Germain.

The hope for Doyle is that he can have a similar impact on this Blues side as PSG's wonderful midfield trio have on the European Champions. He, too, had the option of moving to a Premier League club this summer, as per Mail Sport.

However, as Football League World exclusively revealed, Birmingham were able to fend off competition from the division above in order to win his services for the upcoming campaign.

Should City achieve their ultimate goal next term and end up as a top-flight outfit for the 2026/27 campaign, Birmingham will be obligated to buy the Wolves midfielder in a year's time.

Birmingham are Premier League-bound

This is a club that is only going to head in one direction. The utter force that they were in the third division last season, breaking the all-time points record for both League One and the whole EFL, demonstrated that, even with few changes to the team, Birmingham were going to be a competitive side in the Championship.