Blues have today further bolstered their squad for the forthcoming Coca-Cola Championship campaign by snapping up former Arsenal winger Quincy Owusu-Abeyie.

The 22-year-old Ghanaian international joins from Russian side Spartak Moscow on an initial loan deal until January 2009 with a view to then extending it until the end of the season. There is an option in place to make the move permanent after that point.

Loaning Owusu-Abeyie for the season will cost Blues £2m and capturing his signature on a permanent deal would cost a further £4.6m.

Born in Amsterdam, Quincy began his football education within the Ajax youth system.

Having spent nine years as a youngster with the Dutch outfit he moved to England in 2002 to join Arsenal.

With the wealth of talent available to Arsene Wenger at the Gunners, he found his chances somewhat limited and left North London in 2006 to join Spartak. A year later he was allowed to go out on loan to Spanish side Celta Vigo.

Quincy has represented Holland at youth level right up to under 21 age level, but in 2007 he was allowed to switch his international allegiance to Ghana - the home of his parents' birth.

He was a member of the Black Stars 2008 Africa Cup of Nations squad which reached the semi-finals of the competition in February.

Quincy has an abundance of pace and skill and can play as a left winger or a forward.

 Keep right on this is a good signing.

Will bolster up the attack big time :)

Firstly before I begin to ramble I'd like to welcome you all to the blog, this is where I will be giving you all a simple little information about Birmingham City, maybe a signing or just the latest score even who knows, but I will do my best to entertain you all and hope you enjoy reading this blog.

 Firstly our pre season has been very good, there was some impressive wins in Austria, it was impressive to win all the games and get the teams spirtit up, beating Gillingham and Leicester can only be expected from a team of our calibre and maybe we should of beat Leicester a little more convincingly, a win is a win though as they say and if it was a Championship match I would still be pleased with getting the 3 points, but Birmingham do need to make sure their defense improves, at the moment we have Liam Ridgewell who is a good player but prone to making mistrakes, we then have Martin Taylor who's never really had that cutting edge but when we was in the Championship 2 years ago he actually performed exceptionally well so maybe he can achieve this status again, Radhi Jaidi is a good player but at the age of 32 we cannot be relying on him a lot, he will not have the pace but will be good for the other duties of a defender I hope.

 New Signings

Of course Kevin Phillips and Marcus Bent are good players, Marcus Bent is a premiership player in my opinion, he would do well for the teams who have just been promoted, so to grab him is a pretty good signing, came to us because we have a good chance of the premiership, so if we don't get promoted I'm not expecting to much loyalty off this player but if he gives a 100% commitment then I will be happy and hope fully he can help fire the goals for us back to the Premiership this season.

Kevin Phillips is also a good player and he probably has another two years in him, I believe he can definitely perform well for us in the Championship this year and I hope he can also help us back to the Premiership again at the first attempt, we deserve it I believe, McLeish is getting the right sort of players at Birmingham now and I'm really looking forward to this season, If we did get promoted I'm not sure if Kevin Phillips would be able to cut it but he has shocked me quite a lot in recent seasons so long may it continue as long as he remains a blue.

 Kemy Agustien

I think he will offer a lot to the team and will be bough on a pernament deal if we get promoted (which I believe we will), he can play any where in the middle and can use both feet so that's a good sign from a player so young, some premiership teams I believe where Interested but he wanted to come and join us which is good, I think he will offer a lot but I cannot comment to much until i've seen how he handles the Championship, we all know what some foreign players are like.

 Sales

Fabrice Muamba - Bought him for 4 million and sold him for 5 million, he didn't perform to well for us last season so to get 5 million is a pretty good sign, I have a lot of respect for Muamba and believe he is a great player with a bright future ahead of him, Bolton will probably be a good place for him to learn some more and I believe he will have a great season this season.

Daniel De Ridder - Had one great game for Birmingham and then continued to fade away, McLeish said to the lad he wasn't going to play for us as he wasn't in his plans and not the sort of player McLeish wants to have in his plans, I thank him for his few game service and hope he does well at Wigan.

Oliver Kapo - Thought he was loyal, he said he wanted to stay at Birmingham regardless of whether we got relegated or not, and then he goes and says he wants to go and doesn't turn up to training, performed well in 80% of games he played for us last season and I thank him for his memory and goal against Chelsea in the first game of the season that was great, good luck to him and his lies in the future.

So at the moment it's pretty much 3 in and 3 out, of course their is more because of Smitz and Quedrue but I'm not even sure what's going on with Quedrue, thanks to the both of them, not that impressed with Quedrue because of his sloppy mistakes last season against notably Fulham and Man Utd, wasn't his best season and he was a let down.

 I look forward to seeing some of Jordan Mutch, he looks like he has a bright future ahead of him and I hope he remains with Birmingham for his whole career but we all know how quick you can be performing brilliant and then go to a top side and just lose it all, is he good enough to be signed by a premiership team this season? Time will tell.

I believe Krystian Pearce and Sone Aluko will feature some part in Birmingham this season, hope fully we can see our youngsters break into the first team, it looks like a bright future with McLeish I do admit that, hope he can live up to the expectations.

Sebastian Larsson and James McFadden will be vital to us this season, and I hope they continue to be a true blue for the season and fire us back into the premiership!

Keep Right On.

Mattio.