Kyogo's Birmingham Gamble: Can He Still Deliver This Season?

When Birmingham City landed Kyogo Furuhashi in the summer of 2025, it felt like a statement. A coup, even.

Here was a striker with 85 goals in 165 games for Celtic, a man who had lived under the bright lights of the Champions League, suddenly dropped into the Championship with the promise of tearing it apart. The vision was clear: Kyogo buzzing off the shoulder, Jay Stansfield dovetailing alongside him, St Andrew’s roaring to a new strike partnership.

That version of the story never arrived.

From Glasgow Hero to Championship Struggle

Kyogo’s Birmingham chapter never really got going. At 31, he was supposed to bring ready-made goals and big-game composure. Instead, he stumbled out of the blocks.

The early weeks were brutal. Chances came, but the net barely rippled. Instead of momentum, there was frustration. Instead of confidence, doubt crept in. One league goal was all he could muster before a long-standing shoulder problem finally caught up with him and surgery ended his season early.

For a player whose game thrives on sharp movement and instinct, the delay between chance and finish suddenly looked like a chasm.

Former Birmingham midfielder Clinton Morrison, watching it unfold, struggled to make sense of the collapse.

“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 was still there. The work rate, too. The goals were not.

“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.”

The pressure finally told in front of goal. Rather than the calm, clipped finishes that became his trademark in Scotland, Kyogo started to snatch at openings.

“You need to score goals and he was getting opportunities and he was just rushing at them,” Morrison added.

Confidence Drains, Questions Grow

The pattern became familiar. A big chance. A hurried swing. Another groan around St Andrew’s.

Morrison is convinced the story could have been different if those first few weeks had gone another way.

“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, but he hasn't been anywhere near it.”

He is not alone in that assessment. Former EFL forward and now pundit Don Goodman watched the same unraveling.

“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, for Birmingham, is the heart of the problem. They did not just sign a goalscorer. They invested heavily in one. On that front, Goodman did not sugarcoat it.

“In terms of value for money, it's gone horribly wrong with regard to that particular transfer. 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.”

Stick or Twist?

Now comes the uncomfortable part. What next?

Kyogo is 31, on significant wages, and no longer protected by the glow of his Celtic numbers. Birmingham face a familiar fork in the road: cut their losses or gamble that the player they thought they were signing is still in there.

Morrison can see both sides of the argument.

“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,” he said. “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’.”

That is the tension. The evidence from Scotland says he can score. The reality from England says he has not.

“He scored goals in the Scottish Premiership, so it's a difficult one,” Morrison admitted. “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.”

Birmingham wanted a ready-made talisman and ended up with a riddle. The numbers are harsh, the optics worse. Yet somewhere behind the missed chances and the shoulder surgery lies a forward who once made goals look inevitable.

The question now is simple, and ruthless: do Birmingham still believe that player exists in a blue shirt, or has Kyogo’s big Championship gamble already run its course?