The talented 28-year-old has been informed the Championship club are ready to listen to offers for him as Alex McLeish's starts to plot an immediate return to the Premier League. Birmingham's board accept they will have to cut the cloth accordingly now they are a Championship outfit, with a number of their top players likely to depart. Johnson's central defensive partner Scott Dann has been strongly linked with Liverpool, who could well fancy the pair of them having seemingly lost out to Manchester United in their pursuit of Phil Jones. A no-nonsense centre-half who has an excellent injury record, Johnson will not be short of admirers and it is expected Arsenal and Tottenham could both enquire about his services. His agent, Paul Smith, is convinced it will be a case of when, not if, his player moves on from St Andrews. "Without breaching any confidences I've had a call from Birmingham to declare that they would have to let him go," he told Talk Sport. "And at 28-years-old and having played every game in the Premier League for two seasons running he is in demand for sure. It's just a matter of who he goes to I think. "The player is one of those who gives his all and having met the manager it was pretty obvious that he knew the player needed to stay at that level and they need to raise funds. "I think it is [a financial decision]. For them to declare it they are obviously weighing up who it will be better to let go and strategically how they're going to plan to get back. "They felt that they would have to trade him to get others in."
