Welcome back! I appreciate the we haven’t quite fulfilled the weekly element of the Weekly Blues recently, but, fear not! We’re here to stay and we’ve got plenty of things to say. Let’s dive straight into a bumper edition round up of the last 7 days or so that saw 3 games played out.
Blues 2 – 1 Bristol City
Blues ran out as eventual winners in a match that saw over 35 shots, 12 corners and one (rescinded) red card. Considering Blues fans have bemoaned the lack of attacking options (and rightly so, I should add), we had the Lion’s share of the shots on target with the ratio split 8 to 3.
Which isn’t the obvious hallmark of a team struggling going forward, but plenty of hallmarks of a traditional battling Birmingham performance.
Bristol City controlled the game from start to finish and I have no doubt that the Robins’ fans will feel aggrieved that they left St.Andrews with nothing from a game they dominated.
Famara Diedhiou, a Jonathan Kodjia body double, attempted to terrorise the Blues backline throughout, and it was his driving run that lead to the opening goal, with only 44 seconds or so on the board.
Craig Gardner’s well struck effort from 18-yards was enough to level the score before half time. It remained level until the 74th minute where Jaques Maghoma showed some decisiveness and drove at the Bristol defence from deep.
He picked up the ball, sailed passed a couple of players and then rifled an effort well past an outstretched Frank Fielding sending the Tilton, myself included, into raptures.
Alex Ferguson famously coined the phrase “Squeaky bum time” – and it more than adequately described the last 20 minutes of the fixture. The final phase of the game saw Kieftenbeld wrongly dismissed and early goalscorer Bobby Reid strike the post too, but Blues were able to see out the game and claim all three points.
Isaac Vassell
“I don’t think any defence enjoy facing pace. That’s my main asset – getting in behind and being a defender’s nightmare.”
Birmingham City and Harry Redknapp managed to beat Bristol City and Lee Johnson on Saturday afternoon and they were able to do so again on Monday morning with Blues’ official channels announcing the Bristol targets arrival at the true #BCFC.
OFFICIAL: We're delighted to announce that Isaac Vassell has joined the Club for an undisclosed fee.
📝 https://t.co/oPJdEHeGYh #BCFC pic.twitter.com/DRDVaNZuj2
— Birmingham City FC (@BCFC) August 14, 2017
The reaction to the ex-Hatter’s signature was generally a very positive one. Personally I believe he is exactly the type of player we need to compliment our current, physically imposing strike force. He comes to Blues with a 16 in 42 record at Luton – with 14 in 40 games last year and 2 in 2 this year.
Birmingham City 0 – 0 Bolton Wanderers
Tuesday was a tough night for the boys in royal blue and leaving the ground you got the feeling even if we played another 90 minutes, we still wouldn’t have been able to score. A sentiment shared with myself by none other than Harry Redknapp:
I couldn’t see us winning and I was looking for the final whistle. I couldn’t say that I enjoyed the game.
It was almost the same team which struggled to stay up last season and that is a big worry”.
The only two real opportunities for Blues came via David Cotterill and Lukas Jutkiewicz respectively. Its worth mentioning that one of those was a deflected effort from distance, which admittedly needed some smart goalkeeping from Mark Howard to keep Cotterill’s initially wayward effort out.
Its worth pointing out I thought that Stockdale continued his solid start in the Blues goal by keeping a strong Gary Madine header with a strong one handed save.
So, what went wrong?
The possession stats were fairly even on the night with Blues slightly edging it on 53%. In total, we had 10 shots but absolutely none on of them were on target. Isaac Vassell was a bright spark in his debut cameo, but on the night, Blues were entirely uninspiring going forward.
Its not hard to see why Harry wants at least another six signings and it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if the majority were attack minded.
Burton Albion 2 – 1 Birmingham City
There is no place else I can start but with that post match interview and to be honest, I don’t think I need to add any more too. Its pretty damning stuff.
what I need is to change a lot of them, they are not good enough for Birmingham City
Our current squad is not good enough to target top 6, let alone challenge for it and Harry knows it.
I think the next two weeks could be quite interesting for Blues Fans, which could see such arrivals as: Nakhi Wells, Stuart Downing, Afriyie Acquah & Aden Flint all come through the door.