How Birmingham City can take inspiration from Ipswich Town in back-to-back promotion dream

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Birmingham City are one of the favourites for promotion this season and are being tipped to do something only managed by four teams previously.

After the Blues smashed the League One points tally, their eyes will be set on repeating last year’s success in order to get to the Premier League.

Tom Wagner is eyeing back-to-back promotions and they can look no further than their opening day opponents in Ipswich Town.

Kieran McKenna’s side went back-to-back between 2022-2024, but how did they do it?

• READ MORE: Supercomputer makes surprise Birmingham City prediction ahead of Blues’ Championship return

Ipswich Town didn’t spend big to get success

Nobody had tipped Ipswich to challenge for promotion but the Tractor Boys shocked everyone by going toe-to-toe with Leicester City.

McKenna trusted what he had and while he made a number of additions, several were players that were brought in for a low fee.

George Hirst was signed permanently from Leicester while Jack Taylor was brought in from Peterborough United for a combined fee of less than £4m.

Omari Hutchinson, who could leave for £40m was initially signed on loan during that Championship season and experienced forward Kieffer Moore also joined.

Lewis Travis, Jeremy Sarmiento and Brandon Williams were also signed but a lot of the core squad remained.

Captain Sam Morsy was the heartbeat of the midfield, Conor Chaplin and Nathan Broadhead provided plenty of goals up top and played a huge role in their success.

Birmingham City have been active in the market

Birmingham have money to spend and their new-found fortune has seen them work hard in the market.

Kyogo Furuhashi was the Blues’ statement signing this summer alongside a homecoming for Birmingham-born Demarai Gray.

10 players have made the move to the West Midlands so far and many have signed on loan, such as the addition of James Beadle and Tommy Doyle.

It seems like Chris Davies and co won’t be stopping there, however, with more newcomers set to arrive, expect more money to be spent.