{"id":563946,"date":"2020-08-28T13:45:06","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T17:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/?p=563946"},"modified":"2020-08-28T13:46:03","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T17:46:03","slug":"birmingham-city-sign-west-broms-jonathan-leko","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/2020\/08\/28\/birmingham-city-sign-west-broms-jonathan-leko\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham City Sign West Bromwich Albion Forward Jonathan Leko"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/2020\/08\/24\/report-west-bromwich-albion-agree-fees-with-championship-clubs-sell-winger-jonathan-leko\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Birmingham City<\/a> have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-8670147\/West-Brom-winger-Jonathan-Leko-heads-Birmingham-medical.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fought off competition<\/a> to sign Jonathan Leko from <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonfootball.com\/clubs\/west-brom\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">West Bromwich Albion<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 21-year-old has made the short trip to St Andrews, signing a three-year deal with the club. Leko arrives at Birmingham for an undisclosed fee and becomes <a href=\"https:\/\/fbref.com\/en\/players\/f3bf77fc\/Aitor-Karanka?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Aitor Karanka<\/a>\u2019s fourth signing of the window.<\/p>\n<h2>Jonathan Leko Joins Birmingham City<\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-partner=\"tweetdeck\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u270d\ufe0f We are delighted to announce the signing of forward Jonathan Leko on a three-year deal.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Birmingham City FC (@BCFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BCFC\/status\/1299315920813334529?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 28, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Jonathan Leko: Talented Individual for Both Club and Country<\/h3>\n<p>Leko joined West Brom\u2019s academy at the age of 11 and rose through the ranks at an impressive speed. He made his Premier League at the age of 16 years and 344 days, becoming only one of a handful of players to have tasted Premier League football at that age. Leko then spent much of the 2016\/17 season with West Brom U23s. His performances earned a nomination for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.birminghammail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/football-news\/west-brom-digest-jonathan-leko-12893306\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Golden Boy<\/a> award in 2016, and, subsequently, he was subject to interest from a number of Football League clubs.<\/p>\n<p>Leko\u2019s progress has also always been monitored by the national team. He has been capped by England\u2019s youth teams from U16\u2019s right through to U20\u2019s.<\/p>\n<h3>Unproductive Loan to Bristol City<\/h3>\n<p>At the start of the 2017\/2018 campaign, a then 18-year-old Leko joined Bristol City on a season-long loan. However, it proved to be a step too far for the youngster. After 11 goalless appearances, he was recalled by West Brom and remained with the club\u2019s U23s.<\/p>\n<h3>Impressive 2019\/20 Season Halted By Injury<\/h3>\n<p>Leko then enjoyed a much better spell at Charlton Athletic during the 2019\/20 campaign. Charlton started the season off excellently, and Leko had scored five goals and recorded four assists in 21 appearances. However, on 27 December Leko\u2019s season was cut-short after an ACL injury against Queens Park Rangers.<\/p>\n<p>Upon suffering his injury, the 21-year-old headed back to West Brom for treatment.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo<br \/>\n<a id=\"7VdPzAiYSedtQY5EsnbK1Q\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1190342064\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'7VdPzAiYSedtQY5EsnbK1Q',sig:'Q74cvq0yON8vkqvKwCPEVWwyXRYLCcUy3r-4AMXqvMU=',w:'594px',h:'437px',items:'1190342064',caption: true ,tld:'co.uk',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Birmingham City have fought off competition to sign Jonathan Leko from West Bromwich Albion. The 21-year-old has made the short trip to St Andrews, signing a three-year deal with the club. Leko arrives at Birmingham for an undisclosed fee and becomes Aitor Karanka\u2019s fourth signing of the window. Jonathan Leko Joins Birmingham City \u270d\ufe0f We [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3580,"featured_media":563973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,33,30,3,28,26],"tags":[638,1318,537,6510,5671,4955,6340,644,136],"class_list":["post-563946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-league-football","category-championship","category-news","category-premier-league","category-transfers","category-west-brom","tag-aitor-karanka","tag-birmingham-city","tag-bristol-city","tag-charlton","tag-golden-boy-awards","tag-jonathan-leko","tag-u23s","tag-west-brom","tag-world-football"],"modified_by":"Ben Robinson, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3580"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/football\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}