Birmingham have agreed the signing of Scotland striker Garry O'Connor from Lokomotiv Moscow for £2.65million, according to the Russian club.
The 24-year-old, who left Hibernian for Lokomotiv in March last year, is set
to pen a two-year contract and will become Steve Bruce's third summer signing if
he passes a medical at St Andrews.
In a statement on their official website, www.fclm.ru, Lokomotiv said:
'Lokomotiv Moscow have come to an agreement with Birmingham City about the
transfer of Lokomotiv attacker Garry O'Connor to the English club.
'The total fee for O'Connor is 5.3million dollars. It is expected that after O'Connor passes his medical tests, he will sign a
two-year contract with the Birmingham club.'
City manager Steve Bruce had been desperate for new firepower to bolster his
side's chances of staying in the Barclays Premier League following the return of
loan forward Nicklas Bendtner to Arsenal.
Bruce also has Cameron Jerome, DJ Campbell and Rowan Vine at his disposal but
all lack top-flight experience, while Mikael Forssell has been dogged by injury
problems for the past three years and a doubt remains over his future.
Blues were unsuccessful with a £3million bid for West Ham's Marlon Harewood
earlier in the week but have been more fortunate in their attempts to sign
O'Connor.
Fulham, Everton and Portsmouth were also linked with the player who scored 58
goals in 164 appearances for Hibs.
It was a lack of goals which proved to be Birmingham's Achilles heel when they
were last in the Premier League two years ago.
On the international front, O'Connor has been in good form recently, scoring
the only goal in Scotland's friendly victory over Austria and finding the target
in the 2-0 win over the Faroe Islands.
That followed a period of exile, which began when he axed by former boss
Walter Smith for failing to rejoin the squad after the party were given a night
off ahead of a European Championship qualifier against Ukraine.
He had struggled to settle in Moscow but signed off from Lokomotiv with the
winning goal in the Russian Cup final last month.
The club statement continued: 'Lokomotiv FC wishes to thank the striker for
his high professionalism, hard work on the field and for the goal in the Russian
Cup final.'
