Birmingham City standout youngsters in club

A look at the young players at bcfc.

Transcript

00:00Charlie, looking at Birmingham City and obviously a massive summer window with a lot of signings

00:05to come in. In terms of youngsters throughout their side, there are still a fair few who

00:11are yet to hit their peak and yet to be given their full chance at Birmingham City. Obviously,

00:16with the future looking bright, going hopefully promoted back to the Championship, they could

00:21get their chance in years to come as well. So who sort of stands out as the standout

00:25youngsters when it comes to Birmingham City?

00:28I think there are a few in the ranks at Blues. They've just not quite had the opportunity

00:32just yet to break through because Chris Davies is focused on the here and now and understandably

00:36so the target is to go back up to the Championship at the first time of asking. You do want to

00:41test out these young players, especially in the cup competitions and the EFL Trophy has

00:45given that opportunity, but you don't want to rush them in under too much pressure. So

00:50it will make sense if it maybe takes a little bit longer at Birmingham than it would at

00:53other clubs, especially those in League One in and around that don't have the funds to

00:58spend. So they're kind of forced to call upon their youngsters. That is a good approach,

01:02but it's not anywhere near as successful as the one that Blues are employing. But the

01:06one player that I'm very excited to see a little bit more of is Ayomo Yokoyama. We've

01:11seen the odd appearance here and there in the EFL Trophy, as I mentioned, in League

01:15One as well, but typically off the bench. He's a young Japanese international, plays

01:20off the left-hand side and he's very small. So he's not got much physical presence, but

01:24he's just so quick and agile that whenever he goes up against a defender, they don't

01:29seem to know what to do with him. He can get in behind and as soon as he gets to that byline

01:33and cuts the ball back and you've got someone like Alfie May or Jay Stansfield or Lyndon

01:37Dykes on the end of it, it can quite often end up in the goal. We've seen that already

01:41on a few occasions. And Romel Donovan is another player who can really bring fans off of their

01:46feet. He's currently on loan at Burton Albion, just 18 years of age. Probably the only good

01:52thing to come out of Wayne Rooney's tenure at the club was the fact that he brought Donovan

01:56into the first team. He recognised that talent when Donovan was still just 17 and he's a

02:02really bright spark and he's a raw talent who can take on defenders, pick out a pass

02:06and you might have seen some social media clips as well. You know, dribbling past three,

02:10four, five defenders before putting the ball on the back of the net. He's one of those

02:14that is kind of a street football kind of star. You normally see that in Brazil, but

02:18we're seeing more and more of those coming out from England and Birmingham are no exception.

02:23And then Brandon Kaler as well, the first British South Asian to play for Birmingham

02:27City or at least born in Britain as a South Asian. And he's very versatile. He's played

02:31in a variety of positions for Blues so far this season. He's someone that Chris Davies

02:37can call upon when we have injury problems down at St Andrews. And yeah, his goal at

02:42Charlton Athletic was very promising. Shooting from outside the area, about 25 yards out,

02:48picking out the top corner. Not seeing as much of him as we might have hoped so far,

02:52but he's certainly one that's got a lot of promise and can help Blues for years to come.