Birmingham City has become a football club unrecognisable from a few years ago. More than 20,000 season tickets have already been sold for the coming Championship campaign, with a further 14,000 fans on the waiting list. Fan parks now ring St Andrew's on matchdays, and the sense of momentum around the club is impossible to miss.
Ambitious plans are afoot to bind England's second city more tightly to the club that carries its name, with the aim of unlocking potential that has long gone untapped. Supporters clubs are appearing across the globe, a knock-on effect of Tom Brady's involvement, and the recurring theme of conversation is preparing to be "Premier League ready".
With such energetic ownership and a fanbase starved of success, it is little surprise that Birmingham feel a sense of urgency. Excitement inevitably breeds expectation, and not only from within the club. There is a widespread perception that Birmingham are a side heading somewhere significant. Yet progress of that kind rarely arrives overnight.
Looking back, it may be that last season represented a pause for breath rather than any loss of forward motion. You have to go all the way back to 2011/12 - when Birmingham were competing in Europe - to find a better league finish than the 10th place they secured in 2025/26.
"It was our first season back, which people found hard to remember at times," Birmingham manager Chris Davies tells Sky Sports.
He isn't referring to the club's own supporters here - he's quick to note "they have been great" - but to everyone connected with the club more broadly. This is a manager shouldering a considerable weight of ambition and hope.
"One thing I did learn was that I can handle it," he says. "I can handle the ups and downs."
There hadn't been many downs to speak of during the League One title triumph, when Birmingham amassed a record-breaking 111 points, their possession-heavy football simply overwhelming opponents week after week.
Last season, in the Championship, proved a far sterner examination.
"You can know about the Championship but to feel it is something different."
England's second tier posed unfamiliar questions, and Davies and his squad didn't always have the right answers. Plan A only worked some of the time.
"We came up from League One playing total football, having 80 per cent possession with a lot of circulating the ball, a lot of dominating the ball. It was really effective for us because we just controlled games pretty much the whole way through," he explains.
"In the Championship we were very technical in our recruitment of some smaller players, more technical players, and we tried to use that style. It had really good days and it had days where we just didn't have enough punch, especially away from home."
Against that backdrop, grinding out a Carabao Cup win at Swansea - Birmingham scoring the only goal despite having just 39 per cent of possession - felt like more than a mere victory. It hinted at extra dimensions being added to Davies' side.
The goalscorer, August Priske, is a physically imposing young target-man signed in January who appears to have grown from that half-season of Championship experience. The 22-year-old Dane also scored the opener against Barcelona at a packed St Andrew's last month.
"Jhon Solis, Carlos Vicente and August came in at the same time and that little six months that they did have is their initiation to what English football is like, what the Championship is like, and now they are ready to go. They have all done very well."
Vicente, an aggressive Spanish winger, set up Priske's goal at Swansea. Solis also found the net against Barcelona, with the Colombian already something of a fan favourite. He gives Birmingham's midfield the same added presence that Priske provides up front.
"When I reflected on the season, I thought for us to take the next step and progress, physicality is going to be really important. The game now is a lot of man-to-man pressing, a lot of set-piece emphasis. You need the physical capacity to deal with it."
That reasoning has informed Birmingham's summer transfer business too. Building on those winter signings, the club has recruited Dael Fry, a 6ft 4in centre-back with close to 300 Championship appearances behind him, who is expected to settle in quickly.
The plan is to build on Davies' existing foundations rather than tear them up entirely.
"As a team that can keep the ball, it is a lot easier to then move into a more pragmatic or direct style than being a team that only knows how to play pragmatic or direct football."
That evolution actually started in the closing weeks of last season. Birmingham sat 17th in mid-April, but Davies used the international break that spring to begin tweaking his side's approach. They became noticeably more direct.
"I started thinking about being a little bit more flexible with the shape we were using and how we were positioning ourselves, but focusing more on more direct play, more transitions and more set-pieces if possible. So we sort of finished the season that way."
Birmingham finished the campaign on a five-match unbeaten run, securing that top-10 finish and heading into the summer with genuine belief.
"It is a fine balance because we don't want to lose what we're good at. What I won't come away from is the pressing. I don't think any team last season in the Championship really played through our press consistently. I thought it was really effective for us."
But there will be adjustments in what happens once Birmingham regain possession.
"I think that hopefully is something that we can have as a weapon that we can use a little bit more. When we get the ball, just to go forward that little bit quicker, hopefully win more set-pieces."
That thinking explains another appointment behind the scenes. Birmingham have brought in a specialist set-piece coach, Scott Fry, with Davies pinpointing dead-ball situations as a clear route for his side to genuinely challenge for promotion this season.
Solis's goal against Barcelona came from a set-piece. Priske's winner at Swansea followed a set-piece routine that found Vicente, who squared the ball for the striker to finish. In other words, the emphasis on set-pieces is already paying off. Davies has been crunching the numbers too.
"We have a set-piece coach and the idea is to score more from them. We needed to score 70-odd goals really to be in among those top teams last season."
Crucially, that tally of 70-odd was hit by the top six but not by the rest of the division. Birmingham managed 57 goals.
The challenge now is finding an extra 13 goals from somewhere.
"If six or seven of those can come from set-pieces and two or three can come from counter-attacks, then you only need another two or three from your general football. So it is absolutely doable."
Absolutely doable - that phrase captures the prevailing mood. Last season Birmingham were still learning the Championship. Now, they know it.
"It was not just me, several players had never played in it before. Now they have 40 games in the bank. They know what it is like away at Millwall."
At the training ground, Davies has stripped back the buzzwords that once decorated the walls. No more gimmicks is the current mantra - leaner and meaner, much like the squad itself. There's a growing feeling of continuity now, that this Birmingham side is genuinely ready to push on.
Craig Gardner has departed as director of football, though the club has downplayed any disruption, with the experienced Mike Rigg taking on more responsibility. Commercially, Birmingham continue to expand, boasting the highest revenue of any Championship club that isn't reliant on parachute payments.
Birmingham's growth extends beyond the men's side too - a fixture list confirmed for the 2026/27 Women's Super League season shows Manchester City opening their title defence away at Birmingham City, with London City Lionesses hosting Manchester United live on Sky Sports on the same opening weekend, underlining the wider ambitions running through the club.
Contradictory accounts of last season's finish
There is some discrepancy over exactly how Birmingham's 2025/26 campaign concluded. According to the interview conducted for this piece, Birmingham finished 10th in the Championship in 2025/26 - the club's best finish since their run to Europe in 2011/12. However, according to the Telegraph, the 2025/26 campaign instead ended in relegation to League One, with Birmingham winning on the final day of the Championship season but still going down. Both versions are presented here as reported by their respective sources.
What isn't in dispute is Birmingham's historic League One title win that preceded the Championship campaign. Their history page on BBC Sport notes that Birmingham set an EFL points record and later passed the 100-point mark during that League One promotion season, consistent with the 111-point tally referenced by Davies.
Cup progress and opening-day form
Birmingham's cup pedigree has continued into the new season. A separate Birmingham City news feed confirms the club advanced in the Carabao Cup courtesy of a 1-0 win over Swansea City, with August Priske scoring the decisive goal - matching the account given by Davies. In the league itself, Birmingham opened their Championship campaign in more emphatic fashion, beating Swansea City 3-0 on 8 August 2026, according to Sky Sports.
What happens next
Birmingham's fixture list, as detailed by Sky Sports, shows the club travelling to Sheffield United away on 15 August 2026, before returning to St Andrew's to host Bristol City at home on 22 August 2026. They then head to Wrexham away on 28 August 2026. Those three fixtures will offer an early indication of whether Davies' more direct, set-piece-focused approach can turn Birmingham into genuine promotion contenders, as he insists it can.
"I am confident that we can keep progressing. That is the big thing," says Davies. "We just need to keep moving forward and getting stronger."
