Kyogo's Birmingham Gamble: A Costly Conundrum

When Birmingham City landed Kyogo Furuhashi in the summer of 2025, it felt like a statement. Eighty-five goals in 165 games for Celtic. Champions League minutes in his legs. Movement that terrorised Scottish Premiership defences.

For a newly promoted Championship side, this was supposed to be the coup that fast-tracked their ambitions.

It never came close.

The plan was simple enough. Drop a proven finisher into the second tier, pair him with Jay Stansfield at St Andrew’s, and let the goals flow. Instead, Kyogo’s Birmingham career stalled almost as soon as it started. The 31-year-old never found rhythm, never found conviction, and never looked like the player who had lit up Glasgow.

One league goal. That’s the stark return.

He stumbled out of the blocks, the early weeks defined not by ruthless finishing but by snatched efforts and heavy touches. The longer the drought dragged on, the more obvious the tension became. Confidence didn’t just dip; it drained away.

Former Birmingham midfielder Curtis Morrison, watching on with disbelief, struggled to reconcile the player he knew from Celtic with the one labouring in blue.

“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, in association with Freebets.com. Kyogo, he insisted, was not starved of service in England. The chances were there. The net, stubbornly, was not.

“He was getting the chances at Birmingham City but just wasn't putting them in, and that can happen. 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 last line cuts to the heart of it. Rushing. A striker who once looked composed and clinical now snatching at openings, almost desperate to force his way out of the rut with every swing of his right boot.

The pressure finally told in a different way. A long-standing shoulder problem, managed for months, eventually sent him to the operating table and brought a dismal season to a premature end. Any faint hope of a late surge vanished with it.

Now, as Birmingham weigh up their next move, Kyogo has become a dilemma as much as a disappointment.

Morrison sees both sides of the argument.

“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 admitted.

From there, the conversation shifts to cold, uncomfortable realities: wages, value, squad planning.

“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. 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’.”

It’s the kind of decision that can shape a window. Cash in on a misfiring asset, or double down and trust the track record that made him such an attractive signing in the first place?

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

Morrison is not alone in his bafflement. EFL pundit Don Goodman, who has tracked Kyogo closely, saw the spiral unfold in real time.

“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,” he told GOAL. The tone is part analysis, part regret.

“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.”

That is the brutal truth of elite football. A striker can bring clever movement, relentless pressing, all the intangible work that coaches love. But when the goals dry up, patience dries up with them.

For now, Birmingham stand at a crossroads with a forward who was supposed to define their return to the Championship. Do they cut their losses on a big-name signing who never got going, or gamble that the Celtic version of Kyogo is still in there, waiting for one clean strike to bring him back to life?