Birmingham would have been looking for £400K for a guy with 6 months left on his contract who they're never going to play? Don't be ridiculous! Buying out the remainder of his contract would've surely been enough to secure him permanently - surely Birmingham would've accepted £100K or maybe even less, considering it would save them paying his wages and they'd be losing him for nothing in the summer.
If he's useless for the next 6 months we can walk away and will have saved ourselves some money. But if he's good we'll have a fight on our hands to sign him permanently and will be back to the same old story of not being able to compete for wages etc. Absolutely guaranteed if he does well in the next few months Rangers or Celtic will try and sign him.