Tony Mowbray not stopping midfielder over transfer decision

Birmingham City manager Tony Mowbray has addressed the current transfer scenario involving wonderkid Jordan James.

Tony Mowbray believes Birmingham City will keep wonderkid midfielder Jordan James despite continuing talks with Serie A club Atalanta.

The Wales international’s future has been the subject of much speculation in recent weeks, following the Blues’ rejection of a £4 million deal. According to Italian media, James has even signed personal terms on a move, but this has yet to be confirmed by Birmingham.

Mowbray confronts a number of obstacles upon his arrival at St Andrew’s, one of which is being thrust into an active transfer window. The new manager has only had two or three days to work with his new team, making major personnel moves extremely difficult.

Nonetheless, when asked about James’ future during his first press conference, the new manager spoke extensively. Although there are no assurances that James will stay, Mowbray has expressed his optimistic outlook on the matter and explained the dynamics at play.

“The ideal situation is to keep your best players. When it comes to ambition, selling your best young players goes against it,” Mowbray stated on Thursday afternoon. “|I don’t know much about the young man other than the fact that I’ve seen him in training and he appears to be very powerful.” I also saw the game against Hull City, and he had a few of really good drives on the ball.

“My hope is that we will retain our best young players because we are attempting to build a football club.” As I already stated, you must fill the club with talent; if he is already here, let us keep him.

“Of course, I must add that every player has a cost.” Every player has the option to request to exit the game. In my managerial career, I’ve occasionally sold players in order to enhance the team. If you sell a player for X number of pounds and then bring in four new players, your club will improve.

“I’m open to all possibilities.” I’m not sitting here thinking, ‘We have to keep this child,’ because if a youngster knocks on my door and says he wants to leave and it’s best for the football club, why wouldn’t you better your football club? “Right now, my first message to anyone would be that we need to keep our best players,” Mowbray concluded.

Birmingham World comprehends Mowbray has had his first interview at Birmingham City Elite Performance & Innovation Centre. Conversations with Gary Gardner immediately followed the press presentation, and they were almost certainly about James’ future.