Birmingham City manager Chris Davies has announced that Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder Marc Leonard is close to becoming the club’s ninth acquisition of the summer.
The 22-year-old was at St Andrew’s on Tuesday night to watch the Blues’ 2-1 victory over Rangers. Birmingham’s outstanding preseason continued with an own goal by James Tavernier and a goal by Alfie May, his first since signing from Charlton Athletic.
May is one of seven players who have already joined Birmingham as the club looks to make an immediate return to the Championship. Christoph Klarer and Willum Thor Willumsson, Emil Hansson, Alex Cochrane, Ryan Allsop, and Bailey Peacock-Farrell have also joined.
Following the pre-season victory, Davies revealed that Leonard was close to joining the team. “That one is fairly close. That will be our ninth signing of the transfer window, so it is a large number of players, but we still need more,” he remarked.
“We had a lot of young players come on, so we needed depth. The number of games we’ll play this season could approach 60, so we’ll need a quality group to get the job done.
“We need a few more but he (Leonard) gets finalised and that’s another good player that joins us.”
Leonard brings plenty of League One experience, having played all 46 games for Northampton Town last season. The highly rated Scottish midfielder could feature in Blues’ friendly against Walsall on Saturday.