Birmingham City felt instant impact after convincing player to snub West Brom | OneFootball

Kevin Phillips made an instant impact at Blues after swapping The Hawthorns for St Andrew’s.

When Birmingham City managed to secure the capture of goalscoring forward Kevin Phillips, many Blues fans were sceptical of the move given his past connection to fellow Midlands outfit West Brom.

Nicknamed ‘Super Kev’, the now 51-year-old linked up with Alex McLeish ahead of the 2008/09 season, arriving off the back of an impressive two-season stay at The Hawthorns with Albion.

Managing to convince him to join the project at St Andrew’s and snub a new deal with the Baggies, Phillips arrived at Birmingham City full of confidence in front of goal from his previous terms in blue and white stripes.

Phillips would go on to have a delightful first season in the Black Country, netting 16 goals, ensuring West Brom made the play-offs, while the frontman etched himself into Albion folklore by netting twice over both legs in the semi-final victory over arch Black Country rivals Wolves.

Despite the Baggies losing in the play-off final, Phillips would score goals for fun the following campaign after missing the early part of it with a knee injury.

A remarkably consistent run of form led to Phillips hitting the back of the net 22 times for himself and recording eight assists from 35 second tier games, firing West Brom back into the Premier League as second tier champions under Tony Mowbray.

From that, Phillips decided not to take the leap into the Premier League and elected to remain in the second tier by joining Birmingham.

But at 35, there were doubts about him being able to maintain his fitness on a regular basis, and whether that would lead to a dry up of goals that would harm the club getting towards the top end of the second tier table.

However, Birmingham would feel the benefits of taking a gamble on Phillips, with the frontman continuing to demonstrate his goalscoring exploits in the Championship.

Kevin Phillips’ instant impact at Birmingham City

Kevin Phillips’s debut for Birmingham City came against Sheffield United on the opening day of the 2008/09 season.

The former West Brom frontman was introduced by Alex McLeish with 25 minutes to go, and with the game poised at 0-0, it seemed destined to be a stalemate.

Called into action, Phillips was the super sub for Blues, impressively taking down a flicked header and shooting on the turn into the bottom right-hand corner to spark pandemonium at St Andrew’s.

Such an impressive strike would get Blues off to the perfect start in that Championship season, leading to the club going unbeaten for the first seven games of the campaign.

Phillips would go on to be the difference maker off the bench for the following week by netting the winning goal in a 2-1 victory at Southampton, before gaining his first start and making it three goals in as many games by scoring against Barnsley.

Impressing in front of the Blues faithful so quickly, Phillips would go on to net against QPR and Sheffield Wednesday in October before hitting a purple patch of six goals in eight games from November into December, strengthening Birmingham’s grip on an automatic promotion place.

Turning into a beloved figure, goals would dry up heading into 2009, only recording strikes against Sheffield Wednesday in the reverse fixture and at home to Burnley, before waiting until the final day against Reading to get back on the scoresheet.

Nevertheless, Phillips’ 14 goals and two assists from 36 games were enough to get the club back to the promised land, with his clinical prowess at the top end of the pitch a major factor to Blues playing top-flight football again.

Birmingham City will be relieved to have taken a gamble on Kevin Phillips

Making an instant impact to get Birmingham City fighting among Premier League heavyweight clubs again, Blues are sure to be delighted they took the risk bringing Kevin Phillips to the club, with the number nine being such a consistent figure of goals wherever he’s been.

Although his goalscoring tally did wind down with Blues heading into the twilight period of his career, the 2008/09 season alone was enough to justify the investment, with his wide range of goalscoring finishes meaning Blues fans couldn’t help but fall in love with the striker.

Adored by the St Andrew’s crowd, this transfer was so important to Birmingham’s future at the time, and they will be hoping more star-studded strikers can come along to get the club back to where it believes they belong.