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Opinion: Blues chasing Mulumbu could have a damaging effect on the club’s young prospects

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Well, this certainly was a turn up for the books.

Now we just need to see whether or not he’ll be able to make an impact on the latter stages of the season, that is of course if he manages to get into the team at all.

News emerged yesterday that 33-year-old midfielder Youssouf Mulumbu has been training with the Birmingham City U23 side for the past couple of weeks, and even completed 90 minutes in their game against Crewe. Given the timing, it’s safe to assume that this was all brought about by the injury to Josh McEachran back at the start of February.

The move is a bit of an odd one, mainly because, as I mentioned, it might be quite hard for him to get into the squad as things stand.

With the Blues on their current 13-game unbeaten run heading into tomorrow night’s game against Leicester City in the F.A Cup, and a good partnership developing between Ivan Sunjic and Gary Gardner, with the recently returned Maikel Kieftenbeld waiting in the wings, I can’t see him making an instant impact on the squad.

Who would you rather have in and around the first-team?

A veteran

A prospect

Perhaps this was a move built more towards next season than the run-in of this one, to add that fourth body in central midfield to cover for McEachran’s absence.

If so, then I think the Blues have gone the wrong way about this. Whilst it’s good to have an experienced head around the camp, there has to be some element of looking towards the future at the same time and building a long term foundation, just as Pep Clotet has spoken about.

I may sound like a broken record, but that’s only because I truly believe they have futures at this club based on their displays for the U23 side, but this is the time that the club need to be looking at the likes of Jack Concannon and Miguel Fernandez to take that spot instead.

Even if they are fourth and fifth choice on the depth chart, at least they’re close to the first-team and can make the occasional impact rather than simply stagnating in the U23 team.

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