“Barely seen a return on £1 million of that” – Birmingham City fan pundit issues Ivan Sunjic verdict

This article is part of Football League World’s ‘Terrace Talk‘ series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

In the summer of 2019, Birmingham City broke their transfer record to sign a player who little was known about on British shores in the form of Ivan Sunjic.

Having made one appearance for the Croatia national team two years prior, Sunjic had plied his trade in his home nation all his career until making the switch to St. Andrew’s for a fee of €7 million – eclipsing the previous record set in 2017 when Jota arrived from Brentford.

Sunjic has not missed too many games for the Blues, playing 83 times in the Championship in his first two seasons and it has been the same story again in 2021-22, appearing in 32 out of the 35 matches with the majority being starts.

His presence in the engine room though, coupled with having a big price-tag on his head, hasn’t led Birmingham up the Championship table though as they continue to be a lower bottom half team in the second tier.

So it begs the question – was the fee paid for Sunjic worth it? Football League World’s Birmingham fan pundit Tom Oxland believes that it was money not well spent by the hierarchy almost three years ago and that the Croat should be doing a lot better.

“Very easy answer for this question – it’s a big fat no, not even close” Oxland said.

“We paid over £7 million and we’ve barely seen a return on £1 million of that – you’ve got the stunner away at Derby and that’s Sunjic’s only moment or claim to fame.

“He’s scored a couple of goals since then but none of them will match that. He can be a relatively consistent defensive midfielder at times and