'Wriggle room' - Lee Bowyer delivers verdict on Birmingham City's transfer business

Lee Bowyer is pleased with Birmingham City’s transfer business and hopes that progress has been made in making the next window less of a juggling act.

Blues added five players in January - four on loan and the permanent signing of Juninho Bacuna, for whom they paid Rangers a fee.

But they also had to try to reduce the club’s wage bill - and went some way to doing that by allowing Harlee Dean and Ivan Sanchez to leave for Sheffield Wednesday and Real Valladolid respectively, while selling Chuks Aneke and Caolan Boyd-Munce.

Technical director Craig Gardner has made no secret of the fact Blues need to bring down their unsustainable salary commitments - a situation Bowyer previously described as ‘somebody else’s mess’ - a reference to deals handed to players during the tenure of previous CEO Xuandong Ren.

Asked if he felt some headway had been made Bowyer said: “I hope so. I would like to think we will have a bit more wriggle room in the summer.

“You have got players whose contracts are up, there might be interest in other players, you never know what they do from now and until the end of the season.

“But I don’t think it can be as tough as what it has been for the last two windows.

“We have had to bring in top League One players and pay them hardly anything, we have had to get players out to bring players in and then sometimes, by the time that happens the better players that you might be interested in have gone.

“That’s what we have been trying to do since I have been here really, in the summer and now. Of course it’s been tough, I hope it does get easier.”

Overall Bowyer is happy with the five players Blues were able to bring to St Andrew’s - although he admits they tried to add another defender before the deadline