By Nat Peters

He’s Birmingham City’s stand out player right now. For me, when fully fit, he was fantastic last season. Tom Adeyemi came to Blues as some unknown midfielder from Norwich City’s reserves a year ago, and over a relative short space of time developed into a really influential player; what could be coined as a proper ‘box-to-box’ midfielder.

I’m disappointed that he’s handed in a transfer request, but I can’t say I hold too much against him. Cardiff City have apparently made their second bid of the summer for him, which has been rejected by Blues. Now you compare the prospects of Blues and Cardiff this season, and really there is no comparison; we will be simply aiming to keep our heads above water, whilst Cardiff will be going for promotion. In terms of his career prospects really it’s a bit of a no brainer, not to mention the fact that right now Cardiff could probably double or even triple the money he is on here.

As a club Blues are where we are right now. Five, six, seven years ago the roles would have been reversed in that we would have been plundering clubs like Cardiff for their best players (Cameron Jerome being just one example), so in a way we can hardly complain too much now. Now, we are a club that is living a very modest existence (my single hope for this season is the same as it was last season, that we manage to stay in the division), whilst Cardiff are fresh from the Premier League and hungry to get back there. We’ve lost so many players over the past three years or so; home grown players, big name players, players who’ve gone on to shine at the highest level, that I am now fairly anaesthetised to losing good players. Tom Adeyemi is just yet another in a horrendously long list.

Blues have apparently rejected his transfer request, but whether our shaky if not critical financial position allows us to keep hold of him sine die I’m not sure. My gut feeling is that if we got a decent enough bid from Cardiff he would be allowed to leave. But what is a decent enough bid? Cardiff are set to receive a ton of cash for Jordon Mutch, and obviously now also need a central midfielder to replace him; I think we could push them to go to well over a million quid, and that isn’t including add-ons. There is a temptation (if finances allow) that we should just keep hold of him regardless; whether that is practical, now that the player’s head is apparently elsewhere, I’m not so sure.

Still a part of me hopes that he could stay; there have been players, at Blues and elsewhere, who have gone far further in terms of pushing for a transfer and have eventually stuck it out at the club they were trying to leave. I hope the Blues fans don’t turn on him at ‘Boro on Saturday if he plays; yes this isn’t exactly an ideal situation (especially seeing as he was made vice-captain less than a month ago by Lee Clark) but to be honest whilst he is wearing a Blues shirt he should get our support. Who knows, a rousing reception for him may actually sway him a bit and mean he ends up staying (a pretty forlorn hope admittedly), whereas a heap of stick being thrown at him will make his position at Blues untenable. The reaction of Blues fans so far from what I can tell has been fairly mixed, but once he steps out onto the pitch in a Blues shirt he gets the same support as anyone else.

Realistically though, I don’t think he will be a Blues player come the end of the transfer window. So the question if I am right is where do we go from here? He was crucial to Lee Clark’s plans; we haven’t got anyone else really like him, who will do his running and be able to impose themselves on games the way he can. We have midfielders like Reilly and Olly Lee who will work hard and give 100%, but they aren’t anything like Tom Adeyemi, especially in terms of his physique. He can bully players, he can win the ball, he can be dominant in the air, he can create goals, he can score goals and he can go from minute one to minute ninety. He would be missed. If he went I would hope whatever money we got for him at least a portion of it would be made available to Lee Clark to try and sign a replacement, because I just don’t see how we would fill Adeyemi’s void with the players we currently have.

Players come and players go. With regards to Blues in recent times, a ton of players come and a ton of players go. Tom Adeyemi was a nobody when he came, and if he goes he will probably be replaced by a nobody if he goes; who knows, this nobody may be an even better player? If not, oh well…I’ve heard Fleetwood can be really nice at this time of year.

You can read more of Nat’s work on his blog: http://nattubes.wordpress.com/