I wonder if these fans have changed their minds on the subject.
Or if they were just victims of being caught in the heat of the moment. They say that you should never go back in football, but that’s exactly what one former Blue has done. Birmingham City today announced the return of Jon Toral to the club on a free transfer following his release from relegated Hull City a few weeks ago.
Having had a great loan spell with us back in the 2015-16 season, one in which he scored eight goals and chipped in with four assists on his way to winning the Player of the Year award, the Spaniard will once again don the royal blue, becoming Aitor Karanka’s second signing of the season.
Are you glad to have Jon Toral back?
Yes
No
The reason people say you shouldn’t go back is a pretty simple one, if you don’t do as good a job the second time around, you risk ruining the legacy that you created during the first stint. However, if Toral was to come back and produce at 50% of what he did last time, that’s still four goals and two assists, which would have been good enough to put him at joint-third and joint-sixth in last season’s stat book.
On the surface, this looks like a great move, even with the ‘never go back’ caveat attached to it. In Karanka’s preferred 4-2-3-1 formation, you can easily see Toral slotting into that number ten spot behind Lukas Jutkiewicz, and if he can recreate that magic from the first season, then it could go down as one of our better bit of business this summer.
Although what that means for someone like Dan Crowley we’ll just have to find out, perhaps he’ll stay out on the wing.
