Birmingham City are happy to let Mikel San Jose leave St. Andrew's this summer.

What's the talk?

That's according to a report by We Are Birmingham, who claimed that the 31-year-old defensive midfielder looks set to leave the club in the coming days, having spent just one season with the Championship side.

Karanka flop

While the signing of San Jose was seen as something of a coup for Aitor Karanka's Birmingham City side last summer, it would be a fair statement to make that the former Athletic Bilbao man did not quite live up to expectations in the second tier of English football this season.

Over his 27 Championship appearances for the Blues, only 19 of which came as starts, the £26.5k-per-week midfielder scored no goals, registered one assist and created two big chances, as well as making an average of one interception, 1.3 tackles and 0.5 key passes per game.

These metrics saw San Jose earn a seasonal SofaScore match rating of 6.70, ranking him as Lee Bowyer's joint 13th-best performer in the second tier.

So, while his displays were by no means disastrous, when considering the fact that the £1.62m-rated Spain international is the club's highest earner by quite a distance, the argument could easily be made that the Blues would be much better off investing the midfielder's wages elsewhere.

As such, it would indeed appear highly advisable for Bowyer to attempt to move the 31-year-old on in the upcoming transfer market, as parting with the Spaniard would free up a considerable amount of wage budget, while also potentially bringing in a small transfer fee, that the 44-year-old could use on other targets in his bid to mount a push towards the Championship play-off places next season.

In other news: Bowyer drops Trillion Trophy Asia update that will surely have Birmingham fans buzzing - opinion