Romelle Donovan has attracted interest from Premier League clubs during his rise to the first team at Birmingham City.
Chris Davies wants to keep Romelle Donovan at Birmingham City – but he can’t guarantee the mercurial 17-year-old minutes in the club’s League One promotion charge.
Donovan caught the eye in pre-season with some impressive showings after breaking into Blues’ first team under Wayne Rooney last year. He made his senior debut at 16 and ended the 2023/24 campaign with 10 appearances.
Many thought Blues’ relegation would provide Donovan with more opportunities to play regularly but the club’s summer recruitment drive hasn’t been kind to the teenager. Blues have signed two new attacking midfielders in Willum Willumsson and Luke Harris, and Donovan hasn’t been involved in the first three match day squads.
Blues fielded Donovan in a development game against Colchester during the week and he continues to train under Davies, but there is now a question mark over his future. Speaking before Blues’ trip to Leyton Orient, Davies addressed Donovan’s situation.
He told BirminghamLive: “I was really looking forward to working with Romelle having heard a fair bit about him. He has really impressed me in terms of his tenacity, he’s not just this luxury player that wants to float around the pitch. He shows a real tenacity to go and win the ball back and make an impact on the game.
“With the ball he has great skills and creativity, so I think he has really good qualities. He’s really young. He still has so much growth, both physically and as a player to go, but the plan for him would be the bigger picture, which is can we get him the right amount of minutes for his own development, whether that be here or elsewhere.
“That is something we must decide in the next week or so, which path we go down. As a really talented academy player, I think it’s important that we find the right path for him.”
Players of Donovan’s age rarely go out on loan but that might be the best solution for him. Another season with Blues’ under-21s makes little sense for a player who has shown his first team potential.
With Premier League clubs sniffing around Donovan, who made his England under-18s debut earlier this year, Davies would prefer a loan to a permanent exit.
Davies added: “From our point of view, if he does go somewhere, ideally for me it would be a loan so he could continue his development and continue to grow. We could see where he is after that and hopefully he could kick on, re-join us and make an impact.”