Birmingham City are reportedly set to make Scotland international and QPR striker Lyndon Dykes their 14th signing of the summer.
Birmingham City have reportedly had a £1m bid accepted by Queens Park Rangers for Scotland international Lyndon Dykes as Blues seek to beef up Chris Davies’ centre forward department. It’s been the intention of Blues for much of the summer to totally transform the attacking area of their squad and addressed the need for goals by acquiring three-in-three striker Alfie May.
Dykes, meanwhile, would complement Davies’ existing options of poacher May and club legend Lukas Jutkiewicz, who has signed for another year. Dykes, 28, has accumulated a wealth of Championship experience over the last four years having joined QPR from Livingston in 2020 and he has proceeded to make over 150 second tier appearances, plundering 35 goals in that time – scoring as recently as ten days ago.
He was missing this past weekend in their draw at home to Plymouth, however. QPR boss Marti Cifuentes, quizzed about Dykes’ absence and future post-match, was non-committal on the Scot’s future at Loftus Road: “I just pick players based on availability. He wasn’t available. I don’t know [if he’ll be here after the deadline].”
Millwall have been longstanding admirers of Dykes, and were believed to have bid as much as £3m for the Australia born forward last summer, but he ended up committing his foreseeable future with the Hoops and signed a new three-year deal which was to run until 2026 – but Blues are now looking as though they’ll be ending that agreement after a single year.
Dykes suffered heartbreak this past summer when he went over on his ankle as Scotland went through their preparations for Euro 2024, and he was consequently ruled out of the tournament in what was an inescapable blow to Steve Clarke’s plans.
“Nobody replicates what Lyndon brings,” said Clarke as he broke the news. “Lyndon brings what he does, what his qualities are. One of the best phone calls I have ever made as the head coach of Scotland was to Lyndon, right at the very start when he had the option of Scotland or Australia. Since then we have had a great relationship. Lyndon is devastated that he is not going but I am really disappointed myself that he is not going.”
It’s not only Dykes’ international manager who rates him highly; his former QPR manager Mark Warburton was really taken by him after bringing him south of the border in 2020 and tipped him, during their time working together, to go on and eventually test himself in the Premier League.