Alfie Chang left Birmingham City in January and is now a free agent. There will always be a sense of 'what if' when Alfie Chang, Birmingham City, and the club's supporters look back on his fledgling career at St Andrew's. A promising midfielder who partnered Jude Bellingham in Blues' academy and graduated to the first team alongside Jordan James, Chang was one of the youngsters the club were pinning their hopes on back in 2023.
Chang had just completed his first full season in the first team under John Eustace, and his prospects of adding to the 17 appearances he had made in 2022/23 were extremely good. Only Krystian Bielik and Ivan Sunjic stood in Chang's way for minutes in midfield.
Breakthrough Season
"Looking back on it now I think it was amazing for me personally," Chang reflected on his breakthrough season with the Keep Right On Podcast. "It was difficult at the time because I made my Championship debut at the start of the season and then had a spell where I wasn't getting in the squad. It was difficult mentally dealing with being in and out, but that's football isn't it? Then towards the end of the season, making more appearances, it ended up being really good for me. I look back on it and I'm proud of it."
"Going into the next season there was less competition in the position I was playing, so I thought even if I'm not starting every game it's a good opportunity for me to go and make 30, maybe 40 Championship appearances."
Devastating Injury
Chang caught the eye in pre-season and played 90 minutes in a comfortable Carabao Cup victory over Cheltenham Town in August. Then, disaster struck. "I remember it very clearly. It was just a one-off freak incident. The pain took over." Chang had tried to intercept a pass to his teammate and friend George Hall during a training session when his studs got caught in the ground. His knee twisted and the damage was done.
"A normal ACL is 9-12 months, but mine was more than that," he says. "It was ACL, MCL, PCL, meniscus. There was more to it than the average ACL and I ended up having two surgeries that were three months apart so that added three or four months onto it."
Mental Toll
Chang's plans were thrown out of the window. "Mentally it was so tough. The doctor and physios are telling you that you're going to miss the whole season as a minimum. You're missing out on those things that I was talking about before, playing 40 games, and that's big for your career at that time so it's constantly at the back of your mind. The physical pain is tough but it's easier to deal with because you get through it. It's the mental side people struggle with, what you're missing out on and potentially what you might not come back to."
Chang missed more than a season. He didn't play for Blues again until January 2025 when Chris Davies used him in an FA Cup fixture against Lincoln City. In that time Blues had sacked Eustace, hired and fired Wayne Rooney, appointed Tony Mowbray and Gary Rowett, and had Steve Spooner and Mark Venus in interim charge, before settling on Davies.
"Between me getting injured and when I was back from injury there had been five or six different managers. It was weird for me. I'm not going to be playing but there's five or six different people leading the club. They did check in and see how I am but it was difficult for me to build a relationship with them because I was mainly in the physio room, doing my rehab on the grass, away from the team."
Return and Loan Moves
The Lincoln game, in which Blues won 2-1, would prove to be the 20th and final competitive outing of Chang's career in Royal Blue. "He (Davies) pulled me in a couple of days before the game and wanted to give me that opportunity to show that I'm back. When I was playing, the stadium was under renovation and there wasn't anywhere near as many fans as there is now. It was surreal and a nice thing to come back to after 17 months of hard work."
Chang was then sent to Walsall on loan, where he scored his first professional goal and played in the League Two play-off final at Wembley, to reboot his career. He entered the final year of his contract last summer and returned for pre-season knowing that his Blues fairy-tale was reaching its conclusion. Blues were spending millions on players in order to reach the Premier League and Chang needed time. Still, Davies – who admired Chang's work ethic and commitment – included him in the club's pre-season plans when more senior players were cast aside.
"Going into pre-season I thought 'I'm on the way out' which is fair enough," Chang explains. "The club's going in the direction that they're going in and I need to go and play games, I expected to be going somewhere."
Transformation at Bristol Rovers
Another League Two loan, this time to Bristol Rovers, followed for Chang and it proved to be transformative. Chang played 19 games, including 16 starts, in quick succession and started to trust his knee again. "Knowing that I can cope with it, knowing I've got the ability to do that. That was massive for me to know I can do that," he says, modestly, having held his own in Championship midfields earlier in his career.
Leaving the Comfort Blanket
The end of a Blues career that spanned 13 years, from the academy to the first team, arrived in January. Chang returned to Walsall on a permanent basis and the safety net was removed. "It was a very different feeling when I left knowing I don't have that comfort blanket of Blues. You're going out on your own but that's what I needed. I needed to just leave and not have that behind me."
Chang's second stint at Walsall didn't go to plan and he was among the raft of players released by the Saddlers earlier this month. He lived the dream at Blues, now he is looking to soar somewhere else, after fighting back from an injury that could have defined his career. There isn't a shred of resentment at the way things panned out, just a young man who is grateful to have been given a chance.
"I loved it. I love the club. They've helped me grow from a boy to a man on the pitch and off the pitch, I'm so grateful. There were countless academy staff who pushed me through to the first team and then John Eustace, he gave me that last step. That's the biggest step and you need someone who is going to give you that opportunity and he did that."
