By Alex Dicken

Copyright birminghammail

Birmingham City’s signing of Tommy Doyle sent shockwaves around the Championship in July. Doyle was targeted by a bunch of Championship teams after two years in the Premier League with Wolverhampton Wanderers but opted for Blues. A promotion winner before with Sheffield United, everyone viewed Blues signing Doyle on a season-long loan as a bit of a coup, but fitting the 23-year-old into the starting XI is proving to be problematic for Chris Davies. The Blues manager has earmarked Doyle for two positions in his preferred 4-2-3-1 formation: number six and number 10. Doyle is naturally a deep-lying midfielder but those two roles within Blues’ tactical set-up are owned by Tomoki Iwata and Paik Seung-ho. The likelihood of Davies breaking up a tried and trusted partnership that he believes has Premier League potential is small. A change of formation to accommodate Iwata, Paik and Doyle in their preferred positions isn’t very likely either. Doyle has therefore been asked to play further forward in a number 10 position which has posed its own problems to Davies this season. There were signs towards the end of pre-season, against Port Vale and Nottingham Forest, that Doyle could fill the role and he probably would have started the opening game against Ipswich Town had it not been for a virus. Kyogo Furuhashi started instead, impressed, and suddenly Doyle was playing catch up. Davies belatedly handed Doyle his first league start against Stoke City last weekend but withdrew him on 60 minutes as Blues chased an equaliser. It now feels like Doyle is back to square one, wondering where his next start is going to come from. “He’s featured in all the games and started a couple, so he’s had opportunities,” says Davies. “At first it was Tommy getting used to how we play. It’s very different to Wolves. People will say they are in the Premier League, but we do play a very different style to what he was doing at Wolves. “It’s something he is more than capable of, coming through at Man City and everything else. “He’s a player that has that real creativity with the ball that I really like so I’ve got no doubt over the course of the season Tommy is going to flourish for us, but we have got strength in that double pivot position with Paik and Iwata, and Marc Leonard is there as well.” Doyle has often been rotated throughout his career, even during that season at Sheffield United in the Championship, and you get the sense that he will become that option for Blues. Can he play next to Paik in his preferred position for some home games when Blues need Doyle’s ball-playing skills rather than Iwata’s ability to break things up? Possibly, but it must be said Davies has never entertained rotating Iwata before. Rotation is going to be key, particularly when the schedule gets busier from December onwards and Doyle has to be trusted, otherwise there was no point in signing him other than to prevent him going elsewhere.