Blues sit joint fifth, alongside champions Manchester United and West Ham, with 17 British players, although they would have leapfrogged Villa into third had Alex McLeish had a similar first-team policy to other clubs.

While the likes of Liverpool and Wolves bolster their senior squads considerably with the inclusion of a large percentage of rising Academy stars, McLeish has opted to leave the Blues kids out of the senior picture this season.

MD Karren Brady’s public dig, through her national newspaper column, about the size of Blues’ squad last season following the arrival of Ulises de la Cruz, was unfair on Big Eck.

At the time, Brady said: “We continue to do our bit to help the jobless crisis by making de la Cruz the 36th player in our squad. After the council, we must be Birmingham’s second biggest employer.”

What rankled the Blues boss was the fact that many of the ‘36’ were actually Academy players who weren’t ready for life in the Championship, let alone the Premier League. Whether that had a bearing on McLeish’s decision to omit young pros such as Jordon Mutch, Ashley Sammons and Mitchell McPike from his first-team squad at the start of the season remains unclear.

The inclusion of those three, as well as fellow first-year professionals Shaun Timmins and Jacob Rowe, would have lifted Blues’ British quota to 22, just behind second-placed Stoke.

It will come as no surprise to many that Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal prop up the rest with just four Brits – Theo Walcott, Aaron Ramsey, Jack Wilshere and Kieran Gibbs.

The West Midlands may not have attracted the success and silverware it deserves in recent times, but at least the future’s bright, the future’s British.

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