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Albion loan Chris Wood to Blues
Friday 5th August 2011, 4:00PM BST.
Chris Wood
Albion striker Chris Wood today crossed the West Midlands to join Birmingham on loan – and could play in Blues’ Championship season opener at Derby County.
The 19-year-old has signed on a month’s youth loan and could also play in Europe for the first time, with Blues drawn against Portuguese outfit Nacional in the Europa League play-offs today.
Wood has been drafted in to ease a striker shortage ahead of the trip to Pride Park with Blues boss Chris Hughton confirming Cameron Jerome, Nikola Zigic and Marlon King are all out injured.
The Auckland-born ace starred on loan at Brighton in League One last season after a loan spell at Barnsley and, coupled with his appearances for the Baggies, has made 27 appearances in the Championship.
And Albion sporting director Dan Ashworth has revealed there were a number of club slooking to land the New Zealand international.
Ashworth said: “There’s been a lot of interest in Chris from clubs wishing to take him on loan this summer. But we wanted to keep him here for pre-season and preferably a little longer.
“After his successful loan spell at Brighton, this has been Roy’s first chance to work with Chris and take a proper look at him.
“He’s done really well in pre-season but the opportunity to play both league and potentially European matches with Birmingham, who are right on our doorstep, was perfect for all parties.
“Chris Hughton is also a really good coach, so he will be in safe hands.”
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Great move by DA & JP…keeps Chris fit and sharp but ready to come back to us if we need him, and may help our dealings for Ridgeway or Dann !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Genius! Having gone through my school years surrounded by deluded Bluenoses telling me how much bigger an better Blues are than the Albion it is great to see that they have become a club whose best players leave to play higher level football with us and who we farm out our talented youngsters to gain first team experience!
Hope Chris does well and gets some decent game time. The only thing is he is probably more effective than Fortune who will be staying!!
Heard Elford Alliyu is off to Walsall on loan? He also did pretty well at Tranmere last season before getting injured.
Congratulations to all involved at the academy. Seems we will soon be reaping the rewards.
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well we bailed the dingles out when they was guin under so mite as well help blues out aye boing boing
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Nice to help the blue noses out, and their head coach is a football man. I’d have screamed if he had gone to another local club, to play hoof-ball.
Boing~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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Wood didn’t look out of place when he came on last night against the Greek Champs. Plenty of energy and needed watching all the time.
Our links with Blues could be beneficial to both clubs, especially in the short term. Let’s hope we both do well.
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at least the blues have give us somthing in return,the dingles daint even say thank you when we saved them from extinction aye boing boing
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6SirTez. Gratitude is the fastest emotion to disperse mate. Can even turn into ENVY and later even HATRED. Can’t think of any local club where that applies though.
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CW seems a top young man, he played in the world cup against italy at a young age, how many others got that on their cv!!! hope he matures quickly and becomes a prolific talent at the baggies, seen him score a couple, best of luck m8, boing boing.
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Welcome Márton Fülöp. Enjoy your time with us.
BOING~~~~BOING~~~~JtH.
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