Birmingham City gained massively from Sheffield United transfer gamble | OneFootball

Sheffield United took a successful punt on Che Adams, but it was Birmingham City who reaped the ultimate rewards

Sheffield United initially decided to take a gamble on Che Adams, but it was Birmingham City who ended up truly profiting from that judgement call.

Across recent years in the Championship, Blues sorely struggled for goals although that issue has been rectified by the signing of Jay Stansfield, who impressed last season in the Championship while on loan from Fulham in spite of their relegation before signing permanently on deadline day in a blockbuster deal believed to be in excess of £10 million - a League One margin.

Quite simply, a player of Stansfield's goalscoring prowess and footballing profile has no business playing in the third-tier of English football, but he's proving a big hit there and will play a crucial role in trying to guide Blues back to the Championship and beyond.

Stansfield, who signed on a seven-year contract in the summer, is poised to lead the line for Birmingham for the foreseeable future, but it's easy to forget how much they lacked a consistent source of goals before his arrival in the Second City.

Many strikers have come and gone without ever hitting the ground running, but that wasn't the case for Adams, who did take some time to get going but ultimately vindicated why the Blades gambled in the first place and, in turn, netted Birmingham a mighty profit after scoring freely.

Sheffield United's Che Adams transfer gamble

United took something of a gamble in November 2014 when they elected to poach Adams from Ilkeston, who were in the Northern Premier League at the time.

Adams had already earned a strong reputation in the non-league game, having scored eight goals in the start of the 2014/15 season for Ilkeston before heading up the road to Bramall Lane, but the step-up to League One was colossal.

Nonetheless, Adams managed to make a positive impression in his first season of professional football as he famously scored an emphatic brace from the bench in an eventual 3-2 EFL Cup semi-final defeat at home to Tottenham Hotspur, which set him up nicely for the following year.

Adams became a first-team regular in the 2015/16 season and scored eleven goals for United as they finished 11th in League One. They were powerless to prevent his departure that summer and though they'd undoubtedly have loved to be in a world where they were able to retain him for a longer amount of time, United's gamble still paid off tenfold.

Birmingham City gained huge profit from Sheffield United's Che Adams transfer gamble

According to reports, Blues coughed up a fee of £2 million to prize Adams away from Bramall Lane in the summer of 2016 after seeing previous bids of £1.2 million and £1.7 million rejected.

It looked like something of a bargain at the time and that's exactly how it panned out, even if Adams' first two years with Blues were inconsistent. The striker scored seven Championship goals in his opening season with the club and then hit nine across all competitions in the second, although just five of those strikes came in league action.

However, Adams truly announced himself in the 2018/19 campaign by finding the back of the net on 22 occasions. He scored freely all year and was only usurped in the scoring ranks by a handful of seasoned second-tier hitmen in the likes of Teemu Pukki, Neal Maupay, Tammy Abraham, Dwight Gayle and Billy Sharp, meaning a summer departure was always going to be on the cards.

Adams joined Southampton in the summer of 2019 for a reported £15 million fee, which marked a significant profit for Blues three years after signing him. The Scotland international has since gone on to enjoy a solid top-flight career, which vindicates the separate decisions made by the two clubs all those years ago - but Blues truly benefitted.