Last season’s Barclays Premier League top half finishers, Birmingham City, will begin the new term this weekend without their veteran centre forward Kevin Phillips after it was confirmed the player will face a lengthy absence because of a torn thigh muscle the player picked up in Saturday’s friendly match with Real Mallorca.
Phillips, who scored four goals for the club last season from 24 appearances – 20 of which came from the substitutes bench – is expected to be out for a considerable period of time after suffering the injury.
At 37, it remains to be seen if the player can recover to play any sort of role in Birmingham’s season, though manager Alex McLeish is positive, stating that “Kevin is a notoriously quick healer.”
Birmingham will hope to have some input from Phillips, who has scored 253 goals from more than 542 career appearances, most notably at Sunderland, where he enjoyed a prolific partnership with tall Irish striker Niall Quinn, earning himself the nickname “Super Kev”.
