The January transfer window recap

With the January transfer window now closed, I thought it was only right that I took a look back at the players who have joined Gary Rowett’s squad.

I will also highlighting the so called bigger names of the group who have left on loan over the past month with one individual standing out.

To begin with, Blues re-signed Huddersfield Town striker James Vaughan on loan until the end of the season.

The Birmingham City fan is also set to join the club permanently at the end of the season, which is one of the main things Rowett was looking for in this deal.

Personally, I think that this is a great deal for the club and Vaughan could be somebody to take the burden off Clayton Donaldson, but he is somebody who is in desperate need of a goal, a bit like the Don.

Following the arrival of Vaughan, Premier League winger Will Buckley was next through the door at Wast Hills.

So far during his stay at St.Andrews, the former Brighton and Hove Albion wide man has made three appearances, scoring one goal in the process.

The game against Ipswich Town was probably one of his best performances in the last 18 months and I think there could be a few more of them to come over the last few months of the season.

Like Vaughan, I personally think this is a fantastic deal for the Blues and if something can we worked out in the summer then I think Rowett might try and get him in on a permanent deal.

Towards the end of the window, Rowett completed two deals, one of which was a permanent deal and the other being a loan deal.

Watford man Diego Fabbrini returned to St.Andrews for a fee of £1.5 million, which made him the biggest transfer in nearly four years, with Curtis Davies being the last big hitter at £3.5 million.

Eventually, Rowett got the man that he had been chasing all month and it is fair to say that the majority of the Blues faithful were very happy that he had decided to come back to St.Andrews.

Like most fans, I was also pleased to see Fabbrini return and I am hopeful that he and Jon Toral can work in sync because Toral has been in fine form over the past month but with the on loan Arsenal man picking up and injury in the last game, it could be time for Fab to shine.

Shortly after the Fabbrini deal, Blues confirmed the loan arrival of Derby County centre back Ryan Shotton.

It is fair to say that his arrival was met with a high amount of mixed emotions and I’m not going to lie about it, I am still on the fence regarding this transfer.

There is no doubt about it, the lad has plenty of talent and he just needs games to get himself back into the swing of things.

However, will he get games at Birmingham City? Is he just simply waiting for Paul Caddis to get injured or Paul Robinson to make a mistake? Will he come in ahead of Jonathan Spector? I am not 100% sure he will and that is a shame to see.

There were two fairly high profile outgoings over the course of the January transfer window for Blues, one bigger than the other, but I still want to highlight the other one.

Lets start off with the Demarai Gray departure. We all knew it was coming, but we didn’t know it would come so early on in the window.

However, the fact that it did come so early was actually a blessing in disguise because Rowett was able to find out how much money he had and how much he could go out and spend.

Arguably, Blues have performed better without Gray than they did when he was playing for them. For example, Buckley has scored the same amount of goals as Gray had in three games, so it just goes to show that he really wasn’t all that.

The other out going that I want to highlight is Andy Shinnie for the pure fact that he was the middle part of the dominos set.

Shinnie was waiting on Middlesbrough to sign Gaston Ramirez from Southampton so he could move to Rotherham United and Fabbrini could join Blues.

For me, I didn’t really want Shinnie to leave because I think he is a very good player to have in the squad but having mulled over the decision, I think it is a good one for both player and club.

Blues fans, do you think that we have had a highly productive transfer window? Who do you think the best signing is? Let us know in the comment section down below!