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Kanya Fujimoto falls into a clutch of players with uncertain futures at Birmingham City – but Chris Davies is adamant the Japanese playmaker has to play this season, either at St Andrew’s or somewhere else. The 27-year-old endured a difficult first season at Blues after joining on a three-year contract from Gil Vicente in 2025. He didn’t start a single league game and made only seven appearances across all competitions for a grand total of 141 minutes. FOLLOW ON FACEBOOK! All the latest Blues news on Birmingham Live’s Birmingham City FC Facebook page Fujimoto has, however, played a prominent role in Blues’ pre-season campaign and started the prestigious friendly against Barcelona last weekend in what many view as the dress rehearsal for the competitive opener at Swansea City on Saturday. As ever, Davies spoke very frankly about Fujimoto when quizzed on whether the midfielder has forced his way up the pecking order. The Blues boss said: “Kanya has had a bit of a mini revival in a sense that he was not featuring at all in squads and through some of the depth issues that we’ve had he has had an opportunity to play regular minutes in pre-season, and he shows up really well in that number 10 position and he’s had some good games. “He’s certainly been very diligent in the job I’ve asked him to do in there. “That has grown his confidence, and probably my confidence in him, but he’s a player that can’t have another season like he had last year where he didn’t play too much. “I think a lot will be looked at in the next few weeks in that, but he’s in a good period and has had a good pre-season.” It is feasible that certain players could be involved against Swansea or indeed Sheffield United next weekend in the Championship curtain-raiser before departing St Andrew’s later in the transfer window. In each of his two seasons at the helm, Davies has used at least one player in the season opener only to then offload them before the end of the summer transfer window. Davies commented: “I think there’s uncertainty there but it’s probably not just us, it’s all other clubs as well. It’s not ideal for me because everybody wants to be certain of their role and status and of the next at least six months of their career. “We just have to manage that. A few more ins naturally would lead to a few more outs. "Things should become clearer. Not just in the next four weeks, hopefully in the next two weeks we should see things a bit clearer.”