Birmingham City join Championship rivals in race to sign Frank Onyeka as approach made
Birmingham City are ready to fend off competition to sign Frank Onyeka amid struggles at Brentford this season.
Brentford are flying under Keith Andrews, sitting fifth in the Premier League table after 21 games, but the 28-year-old midfielder has been a rarely-used figure at the Gtech Community Stadium.
On the other hand, the Blues are currently 14th in the Championship table, struggling for form, but somehow securing all three points against Coventry City in their last league outing.
With great ambitions at St Andrew’s, Football Insider understands that Birmingham have no intentions of selling Kyogo Furuhashi, or any other big names for that matter.
In fact, it appears that the club are only trying to strengthen, and Chris Davies‘ side will be hoping to get the better of Coventry off the pitch as well, as the race for Onyeka heats up this month.
Coventry City are also in the race for Frank Onyeka
According to Sky Sports (15 January), Valencia have made an approach for the rarely-seen midfielder, but there has been no progress due to his involvement at AFCON with Nigeria.
It is understood that Birmingham City are also interested in the 28-year-old, alongside Frank Lampard‘s Coventry, with the player struggling for minutes at the Gtech Community Stadium.
He has made just six Premier League appearances, none of them starts, since returning from his season-long loan at Augsburg, and Championship interest appears to be ramping up.
Onyeka has featured heavily for Nigeria during AFCON, even playing 119 minutes before being knocked out of the competition on penalties by Morocco.
How has Onyeka done at AFCON away from Brentford?
Despite sitting 14th in the Championship table, the Blues are only seven points off the play-off spots and 10 points off relegation, so anything could happen in the second half of the season.
That is exactly why it is so key to getting January deals done, and Onyeka could make a huge difference in the middle of the park for a club attempting to navigate mid-table right now.
At AFCON, the midfielder played 350 minutes, maintaining an 88 per cent pass rate, won two tackles per game, almost six duels a game, and also won two fouls on average per 90 minutes [FotMob].
He is an extremely useful player for the national team, but back at the Gtech, he is severely underappreciated, and it would not be a surprise to see him push for another exit.