Marc Leonard has a Birmingham City call to make after getting full Chris Davies treatment
Marc Leonard was a substitute more often than not in Birmingham City's record-breaking League One campaign
Birmingham City reporter for BirminghamLive and the Birmingham Mail
“Marc is probably one of the best players in the league that doesn’t play all the time.”
When your manager says that about you, you know you’ve had it tough.
Having played more minutes than any other outfield player in League One for Northampton in 2023/24, Marc Leonard only started 14 of Birmingham City’s 46 league matches in his first season at St Andrew’s @ Knighthead Park.
More tellingly, Leonard only completed the 90 minutes in five of those 14 matches.
Blocking his path was arguably the best midfield pairing the third tier has ever seen. Paik Seung-ho and Tomoki Iwata are both 28, with top-level international experience, and Leonard can’t exactly have any complaints.
Chris Davies has suggested Paik and Iwata could both play in the Premier League and they are the midfield duo Blues are likely to hedge their bets on in next season’s Championship.
The arrival of a new midfielder can’t be ruled out either. Iwata is the fixed ‘number six’ in Davies’ system and there will be games next season where another player of that type is required.
What does that mean for Leonard? Perhaps less game time, but one thing Leonard does have working in his favour is his age.
At 23, Leonard is five years the junior of Paik and Iwata with much more development room and the way Davies has managed him this season makes you wonder whether the Blues boss views him as a project.
Davies has blasted and berated Leonard from the touchline at times in the way a teacher would scold their favourite pupil. The look of disappointment Davies gave Leonard after he misplaced a pass in the victory over Stevenage in April would have hurt the Scot much more than any of the rollockings.
Surely Davies wouldn’t expend so much time and energy on Leonard if he didn’t view him as a midfielder with huge potential.
We’ve seen that at times. There were games in the first half of the season where Leonard stepped off the bench to give Blues control and swing the tide in their favour. Barnsley away springs to mind.
There were moments, such as the chip in behind Stevenage’s defence which set up Jay Stansfield’s winner in the Vertu Trophy quarter-finals, that outlined Leonard’s outstanding technical abilities.
And, encouragingly, Leonard didn’t look overawed when Newcastle United came to town in February and fielded Bruno Guimarães and Sandro Tonali against him. He was one of several Blues players who played up to the level that night.
The question is whether Leonard is happy to bide his time and wait for one of Paik or Iwata to slow down. He will catch up eventually, but he might have to watch many more matches from the bench before that happens.
And for a player who spent the first two seasons of his professional career playing almost every minute of every game, that must be hard to take.