With every international break, it seems that there’s more and more hype around Birmingham City and Wales midfielder Jordan James.
The 19-year-old put in another impressive performance against Turkey this week, with Welsh media labeling his performance as ‘brilliant’ and tipping him to one day play in the Premier League.
But in a Birmingham City shirt, James has not too often showed that kind of potential.
He’s a prospect for sure, but he’s been to inconsistent in the past year-and-a-half, and Blues fans want to see him give the same output for his club as he does his country.
The Jordan James debate
It’s not been easy for James.
There’s been changes in managers and changes in systems, and the last boss John Eustace didn’t really favour James, or even know where to best deploy the Welsh international.
But he’s now started the last three for Wayne Rooney who appears to favour James more than Eustace did, so there’s hope that James can nail down a starting spot and eventually show some of this impressive international form at club level.
After breaking through the youth ranks at St Andrew’s alongside the likes of Jude Bellingham, James’ trajectory has somewhat slowed down, and that’s an opinion reflected by Birmingham Live journalist Brian Dick.
Having his say on James ahead of this weekend’s Championship clash vs Sheffield Wednesday, he wrote:
“The criteria by which you judge a player change. When he first came in at 17, you are just looking for the lad to get through 90 minutes without any glaring errors and he did that. He was a really pleasant surprise in that first season. Then he seemed to plateau and I’m not sure John Eustace really figured out how to use him.”
James, Rooney, and Birmingham City…
Rooney needs to turn things around. And after seeing how well James did for his country this month, he’ll no doubt be looking to him to help him turn the tide.
And Dick has given Rooney an indication of where best to deploy James, saying:
“For me, the best of JJ is winning the ball back, playing it forward and getting up and down. Eustace didn’t really do that, his two central midfielders were quite deep-lying. Then Eustace tried him out on the right with Laird overlapping. We’re still trying to work out what his best position is. As an orthodox central midfielder who can win back possession and play it forward is probably it.”
This season, Ivan Sunjic and Krystian Bielik have donned the central midfield position for Birmingham City, but one might need to make way for James.
It’d be a tricky decision for Rooney but it would be a nice problem to have one of Sunjic, who signed for more than £6million in 2019, or Bielik on the bench; though expect Bielik to be the first-choice given his overall presence and contribution to the side.
A centre-pairing of James and Bielik could give Blues a really hardened and energetic middle, with James the one who’d look to start moves and get the ball into the midfield trio and the attacker in front of him.
Given the poor recent form, we could see a rather new-look Birmingham City XI at St Andrew’s this weekend.