Sky Sports pundit makes confident Birmingham City Championship promotion prediction on one condition

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Birmingham City have been tipped to follow in the footsteps of Ipswich Town and win back-to-back promotions to the Premier League.

Ipswich Town are set to be back in the Championship come 2025/26, but their feat of reaching the top flight from League One in two seasons was still remarkable.

Birmingham City, who broke an EFL points record earlier this week, could now be on course to do the same.

A high-spending transfer window for Birmingham is expected to be on the cards as they gear up for life back in the Championship.

Meanwhile, we already revealed last month that a number of clubs in the second tier are fearful of the Blues before next season has even started.

• READ MORE: Three Championship players Birmingham City could sign for nothing including ‘outstanding’ talent

Birmingham City backed for Championship promotion on one condition

The Midlands outfit spent big in the 2024/25 campaign, including a record fee for Jay Stansfield.

EFL Analysis understands that Birmingham will have an aggressive 2025 summer transfer window as well.

Now, Sky Sports pundit Lee Hendrie has been discussing the Blues, and Wrexham’s chances of winning promotion from the Championship.

When doing so, Hendrie suggested Birmingham could be promoted automatically, but it could depend on the teams who are relegated from the Premier League and what investments they make.

He told Football League World: “After what Wrexham and Birmingham have done last season, why shouldn’t they be real strong candidates of going and getting promoted again?

“I think that we see teams coming out of League One, and they probably haven’t got the money and the strong incentives to bring in players that can have that bounce factor to go again.

“This is a different case with Wrexham and Birmingham City.

“I feel that they’ll be amongst play-offs, and there is a big case to say that they’ll go up automatically.

“However, that all depends on the teams that are coming down and the investments there, but I do feel that they have real strong stakes, both of them clubs, to go and get a promotion again, be it play-offs or automatically.”

Birmingham City could break transfer record

As already mentioned, the Blues spent big on Stansfield last year – a deal that paid off massively.

However, there is a chance that the recently promoted outfit could be splashing big money again in the coming months.

Owner Tom Wagner recently said that Birmingham can break their transfer record if they have the headroom to do it.

He stated: “If we have the headroom, we’ll do it. We’ll see. I think at the end of the day, a lot of it is thinking about what do we spend this year versus what we spend in future years? Where’s the talent? What’s the price? Where’s the value?

“All of those are questions that can’t be answered until the window opens, but you know we do have high ambitions and at the same time we will be seeking great value. I think we did an exceptional job with that last summer and I think we’ll do a very good job with it this summer.”