Cesar Luis Merlo has revealed that Birmingham City have agreed a fee with Anderlecht for the signing of Argentinian striker Luis Vazquez. The 25-year-old, who spent the second half of last season out on loan at Getafe in La Liga, will join Birmingham City for a fee believed to be in the region of €3.5m. After struggling to really settle at Anderlecht, is Vazquez going to be able to make an impact for Birmingham City in the second tier of English football?

Vazquez joined Anderlecht back in 2023 form Boca Juniors and had a decent, if not spectacular, first season in European football. he scored seven goals in 41 games and followed this up with nine goals in 55 games the next season. However, despite his height and physical attributes, he was never a convincing option up front for Anderlecht. There is a reason that, despite their struggles up front, the club was willing to let him join Getafe on loan during the 2025/2026 season. Vazquez had scored just twice for Anderlecht in 20 games. At Getafe, Vazquez scored three goals in 17 games.

So what can Birmingham City fans expect from the 25-year-old? He is, because of his height, decent in the air, winning more aerial duels than 74% of strikers in the Belgian Pro League according to FotMob data. But he certainly isn’t a striker that can link up and create chances for other forwards. He created more chances than only 14% of forwards in the league and had more shots than only 31% of strikers in the league, pretty low numbers for a side like Anderlecht who are one of the better sides in Belgium.

His technical ability isn’t as great as one would hope from an Argentine player, especially given his height, one would hope he would be better at being able to secure the ball and help his side progress. Yet Birmingham City can find ways to make Vazquez effective. He can be great off the bench to go more direct with his heading ability, or if a team has decent set piece takers he could prove to be a real handful. Anderlecht perhaps didn’t play to his strengths enough during his time in Belgium. One that thing that will help him in England with Birmingham City is that the Belgian Pro League is one of the more physical leagues on mainland Europe. The Championship is just as physical, so he should have no problem adapting to the new environment.

It was clearly time for Anderlecht to move on from Vazquez and the fee agreed with Birmingham City is decent for a player that has not quite shown enough during his time in Belgium. He would have been behind a number of other striking options at the club, so this allows Anderlecht to reinvest the money into other areas of need.