Season Preview - Birmingham

Last season: Championship second, 86 points; FA Cup fourth round; Carling Cup fourth round

Transfers:

In: Stuart Parnaby (Middlesbrough, free); Garry O'Connor (Lokomotiv Moscow, £2.6m); Hossam Ghaly (Tottenham, £3m); Olivier Kapo (Juventus, £3m); Daniel De Ridder (Celta Vigo, free)

Out: Julian Gray (Coventry, free); Stephen Clemence (Leicester, £1m); DJ Campbell (Leicester, £2.1m); Bruno N'Gotty (Leicester, free); Rafael Schmitz (Lille, loan)

Official Website: http://www.bcfc.com/

Official Kit:

In 2006 Steve Bruce managed to take a very strong Birmingham squad down the relegation tunnel. After a miserable start to the season in the Championship – where he almost he lost his job, he managed to turn things around and gain a promotion back to Premier League.

He hopes Birmingham would get slot into the mid-table comfortably like they did in 3 seasons – 13th (02-03), 10th (03-04), 12th (04-05).

Schedule via English Soccer Talk:

"August opens up with a bear of a match at Stamford Bridge, where Chelsea is undefeated for 2+ years of league games. The rest of the month shapes up far easier for the Blues, but in September they play Bolton, Liverpool, and Manchester United in successive weeks (Bolton and Manchester Utd. at home).

With the new year comes Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea also in consecutive weeks, with the first two of those games away from St. Andrew's. The home stretch of games is manageable enough, and even if Birmingham can take care of business in those games, they'll still need to steal some points from games in which they'll be the heavy underdogs."

EPL08.com prediction:
League Position - 17
Many expect Birmingham to go straight back to the Championship, but I feel that the team has enough quality to avoid relegation. They've got in Liam Ridgewell and Franck Quedrue to bolster the back. The striking options are a little weak, Cameron Jerome and Mikael Forssell have to really perform if Birmingham are to stay up.