Birmingham City are set to beat off a clutch of Premiership rivals for one of the bargains of the summer when they tie up the signing of Middlesbrough's Stuart Parnaby on a free transfer today.

Second city rivals Aston Villa, Everton and West Ham United were all in for the 24-year-old utility man, who is available on a Bosman after coming to the end of his contract at the Riverside.

Blues appear to have won the battle for a competitive player, who suffered a frustrating in-and-out campaign with Boro last term only due to a string of niggly contact injuries.

It has certainly helped smooth the negotiations between Parnaby and Blues that the Bishop Auckland-born player, a boyhood Newcastle United fan, talks the same language as City boss Steve Bruce.

Parnaby, whose father Dave runs Middlesbrough's Academy, also has an uncle who works at St James' Park on Newcastle home match days. Those sort of good North-east credentials, not to mention the lack of transfer fee, will have appealed to Bruce and his board.

What Bruce has saved on the fee will help to supplement Parnaby's wages, as Blues get used to being back in the breath-taking world that is the Premiership market place.

The former England Under-21 international does not come cheap, having turned down the offer of a new contract at the Riverside under-stood to be worth more than £25,000.

But it is not money which is luring him from Teesside, more the prospect of a new challenge away from his family and footballing roots. Long before the end of last season, Boro boss Gareth Southgate was resigned to losing him.

While Bruce attempts to strengthen his squad, it is understood that there may yet also be a further departure along with Julian Gray.

Bruno N'Gotty has another year's option on his current contract, and he has to decide whether to take up that or make the short move across the Midlands to Leicester City, who are reported to have made an offer for him.

I am unsure of the bloke tbh

boro have always struggled until they got woodgate and parnaby hasnt played

he only played 10 games last season as well

he is competitive and doesnt bottle challenges so he is a blues type player

but hardly the high profile the fans want

Perhaps he's being signed as a translator! There's times SB could do with one

I second (or third) the who the hell is he, though. I know the name, but that's it.

Being kept out by Woodgate is nothing to be ashamed of (can't remember who played alongside him).

Anyway, he's a centre back, but reading the above I can see SB's solved the left back problem .....

Parnaby at right back and Kelly at left.

Or DJ at right back, Parnaby in midfield and Kelly left back!

who suffered a frustrating in-and-out campaign with Boro last term only due to a string of niggly contact injuries.

another injury prone player by the sound of it.

is a contact injury the same as he gets injured in chalenges?

Have to say, the more I see the new kit, the more it grows on me.

Only trouble is, if you are "blessed" with a belly like mine, the penguin design only serves to accentuate it. So I will have to go on a serious diet before I consider shelling out on one.

Sorry to steal the thread - spose I should say somethign about Parnaby. Erm, 100 or so games in the Prem, 24 yrs old, centre half (which means that we may not get the dubious pleasure of watching Martin Taylor making rickets in the prem - phew!). Seems fair enough to me.

And someone said they want "big names" - nope, had enough of those, just want affordable hard working players, pref with some level of ability & experience - and strikes me that that's what he seems to be to me.

I couldn't believe my eyes as I read through some very negative comments about this new player who appears to have been damned before he's even pulled on the shirt!

Who says we're not a fickle bunch!

Decent signing imo! prem experience and by all accounts borough wanted him to stay due to his versatility! I don’t really know what some people are expecting but we are not going to be challenging for the like of Parker(for example) at the moment! We need to get our self established again before “big” players consider us! If I’m honest I was happier with the first and second season team than that of the latter one made up of “big names” who looked like they were just going through the motions!!

I for one will give the lad a chance to show us what he can do welcome aboard the rollacoster we call birmingham city fc

Absolutely Jim, he might not be the most exciting signing ever but what else are we going to expect?

Think he is a decent signing, seen him play a few times and always seems to get stuck in. Not sure about paying the bloke 25k+ a week though.

I like him. He's a good player to have in your squad, sure he's not going to set the world alight, but he'll give you a solid performance week in week out. And we do need a three or four squad fillers alongside the obvious need to buy a quality striker, playmaker and centre half. We've all been saying we need at least six players, and realistically we all know they're not all going to be top class (if any?!?).

So Parnaby, from what I've seen of him hedoes indeed get stuck in. Not afraid of a tackle, he'll put himself about whatever position he plays. Sometimes has trouble with his temper! Not great in the air, which isn't ideal if we're looking at him as a centre half. He's tidy on the floor though, can pick a pass and link up play. I wouldn't call him a flair player, he hasn't got that ability to play killer balls and dribble round players, but he'll look to play forward and won't try ridiculous balls. A lot like Clemence, you could say. He's got a good engine on him though, will certainly cover the ground.

As for the supposed £25,000 a week, well yeah I don't think he's in that bracket, but I suppose its no different to the £1.5mill you'd have to pay if he wasn't a bosman. I doubt we'd give him that much otherwise, Boro are a bit batty if that was their offer. But we knew that; they employed McLaren.

I forgot when i posted about the 25k that he was on a free thus his wages will always be somewhat inflated. What worries me about paying him that much is surely when/if we do buy a higher profile player they are going to say well if you're paying him 25k you can give me 50!

thats part and parcel of the game these days is'nt it, i dont know much about him but he seems like an average player that can put himself about.

as you say better players if we get any will want more dosh and i wont be surprised if players we already have put that across.

with more tv money in the game now most players are going to asking for more.

what the hell you doing at 1.51 in the morning drnick? you should get out more often. As for Stuart Parody well I agree he should be given a chance before we put the boot- if he hasn't scored a hat trick in the first ten mins of his debut then's the time to start the vicious spitefulness. Meantime I shall pray for him.

i was getting very drunk.

why get out more when all my freinds live in a little box in the corner.

When I consider some of the players we have been linked with and some of the players SB could have signed (and might yet do so), the boy Parnaby seems a decent enough option. I am always wary of "utility" players, as they often turn out to be nothing like as utilisable (nice word?) as they claim, but this geezer has 140 Premiership games on his cv, and is escaping the frightening stare of Gareth Southgate, so I welcome him aboard.

Anyone thinking we should be signing players from the top drawer this summer is living in cloud-cuckoo land. The very top players go to Champions League qualified teams; the next level of players (or players slipping down the pecking order from having once been top drawer) will join teams playing in the UEFA Cup. The next pick goes to clubs with reasonable European aspirations, or perhaps with a manager with sufficient cache to attract better players (or based in London). After that, we can start to compete.

If Brucio isn't going to shop for players looking for one last big pay packet before they retire, but instead wants to sign players with potential, then we should get used to people like Parnaby being our excitement factor. As transfer policies go, it is no less risky than signing the old pros with a season or so left in them; because the margin of error is so fine, it is distinctly possible that it is a higher risk stratgegy than the one that Bruce adopted in our last Premiership campaign. If a wily old owl comes in and has a couple of stinkers, at least you know that he knows what to do and is capable of doing it - he just needs the right motivation or incentive to recreate his past glory days. But if you sign a player who has never performed at the highest level, the hope that he is going to come up to the mark is potentially a vain hope that could cause serious problems.

Either way, we come back to the same conclusion - the cost of the player is fairly insignificant. What does matter is whether (and how well) he is going to fit in and whether he can reproduce the form that won him the chance to join Blues. Let's hope that Brucio's new crop are capable.

Hopefully he'll replace Johnson.

But surely it is not always the case, if you do your homework you can end up with gems. The theory that the best players go to champions league clubs -well surely Berbatov should have been signed for Man U, Chelsea or Arsenal before he went to Spurs.

Pleased with this signing, mates of mine that follow Boro rate him and reckon he's a good pick up for us. Hope he does well.

Bob

Of course it is not ALWAYS the case - I was generalising to try to cut the response a little shorter than it would have to be if I cited every exception to every rule. But I think you will agree that, as a generalisation, it isn't too far off the mark.

Calm down dear, i was merely suggesting that if clubs do their homework they can get some decent buys. I'd just done a 14 hour shift so was certainly not posting something worth getting upset aboot!

Who's upset, dear? All I was doing was agreeing with you. I get upset over the mortgage rate, or Steve Bruce wasting money, or the traffic on the A38M, but I doubt if you could upset me even if you tried.