Birmingham City continue to prepare for their return to the English second tier with the recruitment of Kyogo Furuhashi , Bright Osayi- Samuel and Kanya Fujimoto.
Furuhashi joined the Midlands outfit from Ligue Un club Stade Rennais, a little over six months after joining the French club from Scottish champions Celtic. Having won eight trophies at Parkhead, scoring 85 times in 165 outings for The Hoops, the 30 year old Japanese international has signed a three year contract with City.
Speaking to his new club media, he expressed his delight at signing for the club,
“I’m very happy to be here. I’m looking forward to working together with you all.
“I get fired up more in bigger games, but I score goals because of team-mates, so I’m grateful for that. I’d like to achieve the same here, and hopefully my goals will make everyone happy.
“I have good memories (from Celtic) with lots of titles, so it was a wonderful three and a half, four years. Lots of fans still say hello to me, so I felt I was really lucky. But this is a new place, and I’d like to do my best here.
“I’m here to help the team. I’d like to express what I can do on the pitch.
“I don’t want to talk a lot, but there’s a chance that we can go up to the Premier League. We all want to aim for that and after nine months, it will be great if we share the happiness of achieving that.”
Fujimoto, a 26 year old attacking midfielder who has yet to be capped at senior level for Japan, is the third Japanese national to sign for The Blues in this window and arrives from Portuguese outfit Gil Vicente on a three year deal.
In an interview with his new club’s media team, he outlined his joy at joining City,
“I’m really excited to be here. “I’m looking forward to playing in front of the fans.
“I’m 26 years old now, so my dream is to play in the Premier League. This team has really good ambition and project, so that’s why I wanted to come here.
“They (Chris Davies and Craig Gardner) said they want to achieve a lot of things – and big things.
“This team is interesting to me from last season. I’m also interested in the team, and the atmosphere of the stadium, with the fans, is really good. I’m looking forward to seeing that.”
27 year old defender Bright Osayi- Samuel returns to English league football on a three year deal from Fenerbahce, having originally made his professional breakthrough with Blackpool.
After starting out with the seaside club, the Nigeria international headed to London to sign for Queens Park Rangers in 2017 and racked up over a century of appearances before heading to Turkey in the January of 2021. His 126 appearances for Fenerbahce included European outings in the Champions League, Europa League and Conference League.
Primarily a defender, he can also operate higher up the field, speaking to his new club’s media he explained why he left Turkey to join The Blues,
“I think it’s the project,” he said. “I spoke to the owner, I spoke to the manager, and it’s a project with ambitions about what they want to do.
“Of course they did well last season getting promoted, and the ambition is not just to compete, but to get straight to the Premier League.
“Those are my ambitions too. I want to play in the Premier League and show everyone what I can do, and I think Birmingham City are giving me a platform to showcase that so I think those are the main reasons I decided to come here.”
Birmingham’s other signings so far this summer include the return of Demarai Gray and the loan signing of goalkeeper James Beadle.
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