Kyogo's Birmingham Gamble: A Season of Struggles and Decisions
When Birmingham City landed Kyogo Furuhashi in the summer of 2025, it felt like a statement. A coup, in truth.
Eighty-five goals in 165 games for Celtic. Title wins. Champions League nights. A forward whose movement shredded defences in Scotland was suddenly dropping into the Championship with a point to prove and a reputation to protect.
At St Andrew’s, the vision was clear: Kyogo buzzing around the final third, dovetailing with Jay Stansfield, dragging centre-backs into places they didn’t want to go and punishing them for it. On paper, it looked like one of the shrewdest deals of the window.
On grass, it never ignited.
From dream signing to crisis of confidence
Kyogo never got out of first gear. The 31-year-old stumbled through the opening weeks, and the slow start strangled any chance of early momentum. One league goal. That was it. For a player signed to be the spearhead, the numbers were brutal.
The performances told the same story. The runs were still there, the work rate never dropped, but the finish deserted him. A shoulder problem that had rumbled on in the background eventually forced him into surgery and cut his season short, drawing a line under a campaign that never really started.
Former Birmingham midfielder Clinton Morrison, watching from a distance but knowing the pressures of the club and the league, struggled to make sense of it.
“I can't believe why it's not working because at Celtic his movement and the chances and the goals he was scoring were fantastic,” he told GOAL, speaking in association with Freebets.com.
The movement hadn’t vanished. The chances hadn’t either. The net, though, refused to bulge.
“He was getting the chances at Birmingham City but just wasn't putting them in, and that can happen,” Morrison said. “That's just a player short on confidence and it hasn't really worked out. His work rate's fantastic but you've got to have a bit more than work rate when you're a number nine. You need to score goals and he was getting opportunities and he was just rushing at them.”
That was the pattern. Right place, wrong outcome. A split-second too eager, a touch too hurried, the calmness that defined his Celtic finishing replaced by snatched efforts and frustrated glances.
The sliding doors moment that never came
Strikers live off streaks. One goes in off the shin, another clips the inside of the post, and suddenly everything feels easy again. For Kyogo, that moment never arrived in England.
“I think if he had started there in his first few games and started scoring a lot of goals as a centre-forward, his confidence would have just gone back through the roof and he would have scored a lot of goals,” Morrison reflected. “But he hasn't been anywhere near it.”
The missed chances in those early weeks did more than dent the stats. They eroded belief. Every game without a goal tightened the pressure. Every miss added another layer.
EFL pundit Don Goodman watched the unraveling from the gantry. He saw a forward he admired slowly lose his edge.
“He started missing real gilt-edge chances in those first six, eight games and you could slowly but surely just see the confidence drain away from him,” Goodman told GOAL.
That’s the cruelty of the Championship. The schedule is relentless, the scrutiny unforgiving. A bad run doesn’t drift by unnoticed; it snowballs.
“In terms of value for money, it's gone horribly wrong with regard to that particular transfer,” Goodman said. “And it's surprising, really. I like his movement. He's energetic, he's quick. But he didn't look like he could hit a barn door, if I'm honest with you, after a difficult start.”
Keep faith or cash in?
Now Birmingham face a call that cuts to the heart of their planning. Persist with a proven goalscorer who has lost his way, or move on from an expensive gamble that backfired?
“That's a player they could move on because he's on big money and they try to see if they can get some money for him,” Morrison admitted. The logic is obvious: a high earner, one league goal, a squad that will need reshaping again.
But there’s another side to it.
“Or do they stick with him and say, ‘this season could be your season and we don't have to spend money because he should be scoring goals in the Championship’,” Morrison added.
This isn’t a forward guessing at the level. Kyogo has already proved he can score consistently in a major European league. “He scored goals in the Scottish Premiership, so it's a difficult one,” Morrison said.
That’s the dilemma. Is this just a misaligned season – wrong timing, lingering injury, confidence shot – or a sign that his Celtic form won’t translate in England?
Morrison’s own hope is clear: “I hope he stays and I hope next season is his season, but you never know at Birmingham City because they have money - they can bring in players and move players on.”
The club’s resources mean sentiment will not dictate the decision. Birmingham can rip it up and start again if they choose.
Kyogo’s future now hangs on one question inside the boardroom: is there still a ruthless finisher hiding inside the hard-running number nine, or has the Championship already made up its mind about him?
