Former Cobblers loanee set to complete permanent move to League One club from Brighton

The 22-year-old was outstanding across two years on loan at Sixfields, which sparked huge interest in his services this summer, and despite Championship clubs chasing him, he appears set to return to League One.

Birmingham have already spent huge sums of money this summer, far outweighing all other clubs in the division, and the fee for Leonard is reported to be around £500k, plus add-ons. It’s also said that he will sign a four-year contract at St Andrews.

Cobblers go to Birmingham on November 9th while Leonard could make his return to Sixfields in the reverse fixture on March 15th.

Leonard was in the stands for Birmingham’s friendly against Rangers on Tuesday and after the game, Blues head coach Chris Davies confirmed that the Scot was close to joining the club, saying: "That one is pretty close. That will be our eighth signing of the transfer window so it's a huge volume of players but we need more.

"We had a lot of youngsters coming on so it's important that we have depth. The volume of games we're going to play this season could be touching 60 so we need a strong squad to do what we need to do. We need a few more but he (Leonard) gets finalised and that's another good player that joins us."

Should the move be finalised, Leonard could make his first Birmingham appearance in their friendly with Walsall on Saturday.