Birmingham City are going to win the league. They’re probably going to win the EFL Trophy as well. If they enter my London marathon raffle, they’ll win that.
They’re packed with talent, they won on Saturday on goals scored, they should have won on Saturday based on xG. What else is there to say? When they came down, there was jealousy, many hoping they’d stumble and fall. They spent big, which has been the route to failure for everyone from Sunderland to Ipswich, Charlton to Huddersfield, and yet they made it work. I guess at a certain level, money just ends up buying you a little too much quality.
I’m not bitter. They’re getting what they deserve and we got what we deserved on Saturday, nothing. The most painful thing is that for almost all of the game, it felt like we might get something. It felt like David might not slay Goliath, but the two might have shaken hands at the end and agreed to go their separate ways. Instead, a painfully fair and valid penalty cost us a point we probably won’t end up needing but would have cherished like a long-lost son returning from war.
This write-up is late, and it won’t be too wordy. There’s plenty of praise for us, how well we defended, how we limited a vast array of talented players to just four shots on target, and an open-play xG of just over one. We didn’t hand them a goal (in the usual sense), and we just stuck our bodies on the line. We didn’t really get forward all that much, but what does that matter when you’re playing a team whose matchday squad, in my opinion, would have them sitting in the top ten in the Championship? You go out, do what you can, and if it goes your way, it’s brilliant. Sure, Shrewsbury gave them a bloody nose with their brand of football, but that’s not us.
Team selection saw James Collins starting up top as we continued in a 4-2-3-1. Ben House, a hard worker without the ball, got the nod in behind Collins, and had a good game. Either side of him, the ever-improving Dom Jeffries and Jovon Makama would look to provide width. It’s always going to be a big ask, and much of our success would rest on the duo of Conor McGrandles and Tom Bayliss. I’m not a huge fan of Bayliss that deep, he’s more of a creator, and while in possession he can get forward, we were always going to spend long periods without the ball.
We only had the ball 27% of the time, but in a quiet first half, we did well. Our xG was 0.1, we offered little going forward as you’d expect, but we restricted them to just two shots on target. In fairness, one of those should have brought a goal – Taylor Gardner-Hickman had a lot of goal to aim at in the 13th minute, and only an acrobatic stop from George Wickens prevented us going 1-0 down.
A word on Wickens – his kicking looked really strong on Saturday. That was perhaps one of the weaknesses in his game before his injury, Jeacock has always appeared better at distribution, but George delivered some decent balls against the Blues, which was good to see.
It wasn’t as if we faced wave after wave of attack in the second half. We sat deep, hoping to get our chances, and waited. When the Blues had the ball there were typically between eight and nine of our players back, putting bodies on the line. Adam Jackson, a player who has come in for some stick in recent weeks, was a warrior, getting multiple blocks in. Wickens made saves when called upon, one from £10 million man Jay Stansfield, which Darikwa hooked away.
In truth, there’s not a huge amount to write about. The game was a bit like chess, if we just lined all our pawns up in front of the king and then refuse to take them off the board. It wasn’t one for those wishing to ‘be entertained’, but it was functional and underlined that the fighting spirit we took a huge amount of pride in a year ago is still there, somewhere, lurking beneath the facade of a midtable team with a penchant for giving opponents a couple of goals every now and again.
When their goal did come, it felt like a real kick in the man berries. I love being angry at referees. I love thinking we’ve been done an injustice. Sadly, we weren’t. It’s a clear penalty, a clumsy Sam Clucas challenge allowing them a chance from 12 yards. I genuinely felt we’d get a point at that stage, having put in a battling performance. Even after they brought on Keshi Anderson and William Willumsson, players who both scored at our place, I still felt we’d be okay.
Up stepped Kieran Dowell, who played Champions League football for Rangers back in August, to fire past Wickens. They couldn’t break us down when the white shirts were in front of the ball, but one yellow shirt just wasn’t enough.
At that stage, they were clearly settled, and they didn’t have another effort on target, or of note. It was now on us to break them down, a task that we have managed twice this season already. Our possession crept up to 40% and we had three good efforts. The game had felt a lot like Ipswich and Barnsley from a few seasons ago, one where there was a slight chance we could snatch something. With their penalty going in, that chance diminished until…..
Reeco Hackett broke down the middle, working the ball out to Roughan. He lofted in a cross which Ben House challenged for. The ball dropped loose and there, steaming in, was Dom Jeffries. This was the moment.
Then, Birmingham snuffed it out, and the game was done. 1-0 when, on the balance of chances, 0-0 might have been achievable, but probably not entirely fair on the Champions-elect.
That’s pretty much it from me today, a week off last week has left me playing a lot of catch up, but I don’t think there’s too much to take away that’s negative from the Birmingham result. We did exactly what was expected of us – turned up, put in a real shift, but fell short against the best side we’ve faced since being back in League One.
Sometimes, football really is that simple.
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