What have John Eustace, Wayne Rooney, Tony Mowbray
and Mark Venus all got in common? Yes, they’ve all been managers of Birmingham
City this season but for various different reasons. John Eustace was the
manager because he was doing well even though the owners didn’t really want him
because he wasn’t a big name. Wayne Rooney was the manager because the owners
wanted a big name that was known to American markets. Tony Mowbray was the manager because Wayne
Rooney was fucking shit and suddenly, having a big name for American markets
wasn’t such a high priority. Mark Venus is the manager because Tony Mowbray is
ill and get well soon Tony, one of footballs good guys. It all adds up to a clusterfuck of a season
for a club that should be pushing the play-off places and that line below sixth
place but instead find themselves being worried about the line near the bottom
of the table.
Having got the FA Cup out of the way with the defeat at Liverpool, this game is
absolutely crucial for Saints chances of nicking an automatic promotion place
at the end of the season. Despite the 22 match unbeaten run in the league,
three defeats in the last four have left us with very little margin for error
especially given the form of Leeds United who currently reside in second place
and looks very capable of chasing down Leicester City. Whether or not Saints
can challenge the top two is certainly going to come down to the away games we
have left at Ipswich, Leicester and Leeds. Lose to the likes of Birmingham however and
automatic promotion is nothing but a pipe dream.
The season kind of starts here for us now and Russell Martin has to get the
team right and that hopefully includes Flynn Downes who has been pictured in
training montages from Staplewood but didn’t feature in the Liverpool game,
which was predictable and also didn’t feature in the defeat by Millwall.
The main feature of the press conference leading up to this game was the personal
abuse that Will Smallbone got online after the Liverpool defeat, which of
course crossed the line between criticism of him as a footballer and personal
abuse. I thought it was a good thing for
Russell Martin to highlight and also, good of him to make a distinction between
what is acceptable and what is not.
To the team news and its pluses and minuses as far as I’m concerned. Flynn
Downes is back which is huge but the player who basically replaces KWP in the
lineup it’s of course, Jack Shoehorn Stephens, which means that either he or
THB is going to be playing it right back. Smallbone is in the side with Joe
Aribo the unlucky one to miss out, I presume still blowing out of his arse from
Wednesday night.
Any idea that we were going to be more defensively solid today with Downes back
in the side, lasted all of a minute as Bacuna fires in a crossfield ball from
the left, which is controlled by the hand of Miyoshi, who practically fucking catches
it, and then absolutely smashes it and it flicks off Manning, across Baz and
into the far top corner. Brilliant finish but it’s easy for it to be a
brilliant finish if you’ve patted it down for yourself. Fucks sake.
It's nearly 2-0 straight after Adams gets dispossessed in midfield and Bacuna strides on and takes aim from the edge of the box and it smacks the post, bounces out onto the back of Baz and squirts wide.
We then begin to play and we are passing through Birmingham’s midfield relatively easily. Arma crosses from the left and Brooks attempts a volley which is down and into the ground and wide. Another chance comes and goes as Arma loses the ball to Laird, wins it back and sends Che Adams in on goal from the left but his sidefoot is shit and straight at the keeper. Smallbone drives forward, onto Adams who flicks it round the corner first time to Brooks and he slides a beautifully weighted ball into Adam Armstrong who takes it first time… goal, 1-1, get in!. Everything about that goal is class. Very close for the offside but we are owed one for earlier, regardless.
Having equalised, we then go for a variation of the Wee Man West Brom corner routine and it’s swung over by Brooks and met with a decent header by Manning at the back post but it hits Ruddy and deflects away, mainly because the old git can’t get out of the way in time. Maybe it’s the snow that’s now coming down but Che Adams looks in the mood today against his former club and from 25 yards he has a go out of nowhere and it skids across the turf, past the ageing Ruddy and smacks off the post and wide. Brooks then feeds Smallbone in what would have been a repeat of the goal, but his shot hits Ruddy on the arse as he sits down and squirts wide for a corner. Another chance goes begging as we cut through them again and Downes takes aim from the edge of the box and straight at the keeper.
As we reach 40 minutes with Saints having dominated, there’s a big boot forward by Sanderson and Bednarek makes a total bollocks of it and it slides off his head and goes straight to Stansfield running through and he absolutely lashes it into the top of the net above Baz to give Birmingham a quite frankly ridiculous 2-1 lead. For fuck‘s sake, again.
Saints try and get back into it before half time and we are knocking the ball about on the edge of their box until Downes feeds Adam Armstrong once again he takes it first time and with Ruddy signalling that it’s going over, it dips late and pings off the top of the bar and out. We win it back and create another chance for Smallbone which he drills narrowly wide of the far post. Half time and this second half could well be season defining. No changes and off we go.
An early chance with Adams feeding Arma on the left, goes begging with a scuffed effort at the keeper but next time around, Smallbone gives a short ball to Brooks, who cuts across the pitch as he always does, onto his left foot but with no one closing him down, he almost casually bends it round Ruddy and into the net to level things up again.
From our next attack after the restart we win a corner. Smallbone takes it and it’s knee-height and cleared to Stansfield who can only clear as far as Smallbone on the right and he gets his head up and crosses it first time to the back post where Adams brings it down, has a little stumble and then manages to poke it into the far corner of the net. 3-2 and this game is mental. Che is calm though with the respectful lack of celebration.
With Birmingham seeing the game slipping away, captain Dion Sanderson then comes steaming in on Smallbone in midfield and the big clumsy bollocks turns his back and goes in with studs up in a stamp motion and catches him high and the referee stops our four on three attack to go straight over and send him off. To be fair, he thought it was a red card challenge straight away but if he’d let play go on for even five seconds, Adams puts Brooks in and we score… or maybe not but the point is, let it go for a few seconds when there’s a clear advantage – you can still send him off afterwards.
As the game restarts, Bacuna decides to wipe out Smallbone for no readily apparent reason and the referee does nothing but then Smallbone gets him back and gets a yellow of his own. He is public enemy number one in the blue part of Birmingham. With Edozie having just come on for Brooks, there’s another change as Aribo comes on for Smallbone.
You would think that our possession-based play and always trying to find the spare man, would be perfect against ten men but we begin to get a bit ragged as the Blues fans get behind their team. After some sloppy play by Aribo in midfield, Birmingham attack down our right and Laird stops, goes and pisses past Ryan Manning. The cross is pulled back to Stansfield who shoots and sees it hit the far post and bounce out to Bacuna who can’t miss and doesn’t. We just can’t defend today.
Substitution time and the face of it there doesn’t seem to be much thought going into this other than throwing on fresh players with the shit-tuplets of Sulemana, Rothwell and Mara coming on for Downes, Adams and Manning. You would say that with our new 3-3-4 formation, we’re either going to win or lose and drawing is not an option. Sulemana might make a difference with his pace but the other two won’t and I’m prepared to put that out there and hope to be proved wrong.
Sulemana wins a corner on the left and Rothwell hits the first man with it and then we win one on the left. Luckily Stuart Armstrong is still on the pitch to take the corner so Rothwell doesn’t get the opportunity to put it nowhere near anyone, and he hangs up a ball towards the 6 yard line, headed down by THB and there is big Joe to take a touch, swivel and smash it into the net. 4–3-pandemonium. Three points, thank you and goodnight.
Well, we won and it was ridiculously entertaining for the neutral. Four goals, a late winner, three points – what’s not to like about that? Quite a lot actually, but first let’s talk about the attacking play which at times was quite breathtaking today. We could and probably scored more than the four we got as we created so many good chances. Brooks and Smallbone were having a field day on our right and the creativity was off the scale but we missed chances again. However, if we had any strikers who were ‘one shot, one goal’ merchants, they wouldn’t be playing in the Championship for us.
It’s another game where we have basically got out of jail despite being a fucking nightmare defensively from start to finish. Three really bad goals conceded which meant that we ended up making incredibly heavy work of it, even after Birmingham big donkey Sanderson got sent off. I can’t get away from the fact that we are letting in so many goals. Clean sheets get you promoted and get you up the table and we had the magic formula for that during our long unbeaten run. We were keeping loads of clean sheets with a settled back four and goalkeeper with Downes in front of them. We can only hope that when KWP is fit that he comes straight back in right back and Jack Stephens returns to the substitutes bench. We had a brilliant centre back pairing who played off each other and knew exactly how to deal with long balls pumped into our half for example, but changing it means uncertainty and the amount of times that our defenders were looking round at each other proves that the uncertainty is now there. Conceding three goals against Birmingham is just not good enough. It was another game similar to Huddersfield and occasionally it will work but more often than not, simply trying to outscore the opposition knowing that they are going to score at least two, will not work and Russell Martin knows that.
Make no mistake, Birmingham‘s first goal should never have stood, it was a fucking blatant handball. Last year I watched JWP put the ball where he wanted to with his hands and then smash it into the net. Thing is, they were free kicks and this wasn’t much different. How the ref and linesman can miss that is totally beyond me but I guess it evens up the THB offside header we had against them at St Mary‘s.
Saints response to going behind was decent and a good flowing team move ended with Brooks putting the ball through for a suspiciously offside looking Adam Armstrong (unproven) to score first time through Ruddy. Adam is much more likely to score if he doesn’t have to take a touch.
As said, we completely controlled from the 20th minute until the 44th, missing a few chances and then conceded a goal that wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Veracity Ground in front of three men and a dog, with a big boot down the middle and Bednarek being unable to make his mind up between letting it run and heading it and basically doing neither. Conjecture of course but I reckon if he was playing centre back with THB, that goal wouldn’t have happened because he would’ve known exactly where Taylor would be.
The two goals in a few minutes at the start of the second half, along with the deserved red card for big donkey Sanderson and it looked like we were going to canter to the finish line. Brooks’ goal was a brilliant finish but shit defending to not put any pressure on him and Adams’ goal is the product of determination to still score after slipping over and before that, an excellent piece of anticipation and a superb pick out by Smallbone.
Everyone of Birmingham persuasion is saying it isn’t a red card but I don’t really know what they’re looking at as he turns his back on Smallbone and then stamps down. Yes, he doesn’t catch him fully but there’s definitely contact and it’s a dangerous way to go into a tackle so these days, I have absolutely no surprise that the referee sent him off. As soon as he turned his back on the player he was tackling, it just looked like he was trying to do him and even if that wasn’t the intention, it’s so shit and gives the ref the opportunity.
Ryan Manning is not a great defender. His more obvious gaffes lead to him being scapegoated and then of course there’s a reaction to him being scapegoated and people look past certain things, but the way he allowed Laird to just walk past him and put the cross in that led to the third Birmingham goal was under 11s defending and his drift infield and leaving his man on the first goal wasn’t great either. Jack Stephens didn’t cover himself in glory on the third goal either, allowing Stansfield to get that shot away.
And then Joe turns up in the 94th minute. Always believe in your soul etc. I have never seen him turn and move so fast when he realises he’s running the wrong way to celebrate with the fans behind the goal.
The sub-plot of today’s game is the performance of Will Smallbone of course got two assists for the second and third goals. He’s had a tough week with all the social media abuse but showed strength of character to come through it. He plays well when he’s not deployed as a defensive midfielder. He’s a good player when played in the correct position with the right people around him and where I disagree with Russell Martin is Russell‘s assertion that Will is flexible and can play number of positions and I just don’t think he is. Before being switched to cover Downes’ absence, he had been playing well ever since Joe Aribo went to the Afcon and Joe Rothwell was signed. Put him back in the correct position and he plays well again.
Three points and dropped points today for Leeds and Leicester so the gap to the top two closes. We have to back this up now and break our losing streak at home when Preston visit on Wednesday. Let’s hope we have the regular back four in place from the start of the game and up the fucking Saints.
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