Birmingham City look set for an interesting summer.

Owner Tom Wagner is ambitious, but a serious re-think is required with Blues failing to live up to expectations for much of the season.

Recruitment hasn’t been the main issue though – it’s been key decisions made by the board – with the decision to replace John Eustace with Wayne Rooney proving to be disastrous.

The squad should benefit from fresh faces this summer – and plenty of players potentially leaving should help the club to bring in a number of additions.

Below, we take a look at who’s unlikely to feature for Blues again.

Neil Etheridge

Etheridge has barely played for Blues during the past couple of seasons and with this in mind, it would be a major surprise to see him remain at the club beyond the end of his contract this summer.

Reportedly earning around £23,000-per-week, he is seemingly a very high earner at St Andrew’s, and hasn’t provided value for money in recent campaigns because of his lack of game time.

He’s clearly a top-quality keeper, but John Ruddy has remained ahead of him in the pecking order.

Emanuel Aiwu

Aiwu is currently on loan at St Andrew’s and could have been signed permanently, with the club having the option to sign him on a longer-term basis.

But that option is yet to be triggered and as time goes on, it’s looking less and less likely that we’ll be seeing him in the Midlands again next season.

Ivan Sunjic

Sunjic signed in a £6.3m deal when he joined back in 2019 – and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he’s on a high salary because of this.

It seems unlikely that the midfielder will stay put unless Blues can offer him a decent deal, so he could be on his way out.

Gary Gardner

Gardner hasn’t made a huge impact this term – not even making it to 20 league appearances.

Spending much of the campaign on the bench, it seems inevitable that he will depart and his brother Craig could follow him out of the door, with many fans questioning the club’s recruitment strategy.

Andre Dozzell

Gardner hasn’t made a huge impact this term – not even making it to 20 league appearances.

Spending much of the campaign on the bench, it seems inevitable that he will depart and his brother Craig could follow him out of the door, with many fans questioning the club’s recruitment strategy.

Oliver Burke

Burke has been the subject of plenty of criticism this season and that isn’t a surprise, with the wide player failing to produce the goods for Birmingham.

He has performed well at this level before for Millwall, but he hasn’t been able to kickstart his career at St Andrew’s, making very little impact in the final third.

If he’s hoping to seal a return to England at some point, he hasn’t helped his cause in his likely quest to put himself in the shop window.

Jay Stansfield

Stansfield has been one of Blues’ better performers during the 2023/24 campaign and can hold his head up high after a productive loan spell at St Andrew’s.

He hasn’t always performed brilliantly, but inconsistency was to be expected considering he hadn’t played at this level before this season. However, he took to the Championship like a duck to water.

Despite this, Stansfield can look back on his time in the Midlands fondly and it will be interesting to see what Fulham do with him during the summer.

If he impresses in pre-season, it wouldn’t be a shock to see him remain at Craven Cottage.

Lukas Jutkiewicz

Jutkiewicz has been a brilliant servant for Birmingham, but all good things come to an end and at 35, he isn’t going to remain at Birmingham for too much longer unless he becomes a coach at St Andrew’s.

Blues need to look towards the future now and although some may see it as a harsh decision to offload the experienced forward, ruthless decisions need to be made to get the club back on track.