Yahoo News Birmingham City release 14 players and offer two senior stars new contracts
Birmingham City have released five senior players following their relegation to League One to begin an enormous summer rebuild.
Neil Etheridge, Marc Roberts, Ivan Sunjic, Gary Gardner and Scott Hogan will all leave Blues when their contracts expire on July 1. The club have offered John Ruddy, 37, and Lukas Jutkiewicz, 35, new contracts.
Blues have also taken up their option to extend the contract of Keshi Anderson by a further year. The 29-year-old winger finished last season strongly under interim boss Gary Rowett and will continue at the club into the summer.
But it’s the end of the line for Etheridge, Roberts, Sunjic, Gardner and Hogan, all of whom have enjoyed long stays at St Andrew’s. Roberts has spent the past seven years at Blues and made almost 200 appearances, while Sunjic remains the club’s record signing. Etheridge, Gardner and Hogan all played bit parts last season and will now seek new challenges.
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Blues have also released nine youngsters, including Marcel Oakley and Tate Campbell. Oakley made four first team appearances last season and eight in total after breaking through in the summer of 2021 under Lee Bowyer. Versatile defender Campbell made four outings for the first team, the last of which came in August 2022.
Goalkeeper Oliver Basey, Callum Sullivan, Rico Patterson, Finley Thorndike, Kieran Wakefield, Morgan Dance and Pharrell Williams are also leaving Blues. New contracts have been offered to Brad Mayo and Rico Browne, while one-year options have been activated to keep under-21s top scorer Junior Dixon, Laiith Fairnie, Femi Olofinjana, Harley Hamilton and Sahid Kamara.
Contracted players for next season:
Keshi Anderson, Juninho Bacuna, Ben Beresford, Krystian Bielik, Lee Buchahan, Alfie Chang, Junior Dixon, Siriki Dembele, Romelle Donovan, Laiith Fairnie, Tommy Fogarty, George Hall, Harley Hamilton, Josh Home, Jordan James, Sahid Kamara, Brandon Khela, Ethan Laird, Emmanuel Longelo, Koji Miyoshi, Femi Olofinjana, Byron Pendleton, Paik Seung-ho, Alex Pritchard, Tyler Roberts, Dion Sanderson, Josh Williams.
