VIEW FROM THE SOUTH – BIRMINGHAM CITY vs BURNLEY

Here is Bazza’s last home review of the season.

An early kick off meant an early start from Guildford where I had agreed to meet Will at 09.00. At five minutes to I called up to inquire as to his whereabouts to be told by his gravid wife, Juley that he was still in the shower! It did mean, as fate would have it, that I had time to nip down to Guildford Cathedral where several my nurses from work were abseiling down the building in aid of charity. As well as welcoming the opportunity to support them I was also anxious to make sure that they didn’t fall off and therefore not be present next week! 😛 The event was remarkably punctual taking place when it was meant to bang on the dot of nine and by half past most of them had descended safely before I had to go to meet Will at the new appointed time of 09.30. Having given him a load of verbals about how long it took to wash his arse and he should try and get to bed at a reasonable time and other such idle banter, Will complained that he was knackered as he had been painting his little girl’s bedroom pink after a hard week at work and his pregnant wife couldn’t even make up her mind which shade of pink she liked and wasn’t sure now it was on the wall whether slightly darker would have been better etc etc etc! Will, I said it gets worse! It’s his own daft fault for getting his wife in the state she’s now in AGAIN! We both agreed that pregnancy is actually an illness and something that needed to be endured.

Despite our late start we made good time and made it up to the Oak at Baginton to meet up with Will’s brother, Chris before going on to the match. We were to be accompanied by young Jack, Chris’ grandson who is seven and going to only his third ever game. He amazingly helped us to win £7.00 at battleships and cruisers in the pub’s arcade game machine and he was very pleased with his cut; that boy will go far! Gail, Chris’ wife is always worth a laugh and she has got used to me now and so immediately on our arrival came over and said that she had seen my comments on my last article for the Hull game about her dress and therefore presented herself for inspection with the words “Goo on then, get it over with!” She had good reason! She was wearing a T shirt with very fine blue and black horizontal stripes; you know the sort of thing that if you screw your eyes up ever so slightly, a magic shape appears. I tried but couldn’t get one to emerge so looked down at the rather fetching culottes finished off with sandal-flip flops and a nice red pedicure which completed the ensemble. Comments such as put jam on your feet and invite slacks for tea were unworthy and so will not be dwelt upon. Having finished taking the Michael out of Gail it was time to go off to the match.
Television had obviously taken its toll and a crowd of only 24,578 took their seats for our final home game. In less than a minute Lee Bowyer sent a free header wide, and Cameron Jerome missed in identical fashion before forcing a fine save from Jensen at point-blank range. Bowyer’s chance was a close to a sitter as you can get from a header and the away supporters were clearly expecting the worst “That’s why we’re going down,” came the chant but their back line was all over the place and as watertight as a colander and it is no wonder therefore why Burnley fans take refuge in self-deprecating humour. It raised a few smiles around where I was sitting for sure.

It was inevitable that Burnley with ‘the beast’, Jensen in goal would crack and when Birmingham next threatened. Sebastian Larsson’s cross was met by a flicked header from Bowyer which diverted the ball towards the far post. Jerome connected with his chest and the ball bobbled unconvincingly towards goal only for it to clip Jensen’s heel and trickle comically between his legs and across the goal line. It was as scrappy a score as you will ever see but a goal is a goal and the faithful were happy to acknowledge Jerome as the scorer but it has now been awarded as an own goal from Jensen; thanks anyway big fella!

Blues doubled their advantage soon after when Burnley conceded a free kick near the corner flag that in reality referee Peter Walton shouldn’t have given. He deemed Steven Caldwell’s challenge on Jerome a foul when the defender clearly looked to have taken the ball first. Oh well, it could have been worse; we’ve had penalties given against us for similar! Sadly, Burnley can’t defend set pieces and even our relatively toothless attack capitalised from the free-kick. Whipped across to the back post by James McFadden, Johnson headed the ball back for Benitez to chest over the line from a yard out to break his home duck. “Sign him up” sang the crowd as the scorer celebrated by bursting into tears. Johnson actually looked annoyed when Benitez put the ball in from his header. I couldn’t fathom why since his header was not going in directly but then it occurred to me that he may have had a bet on that Chucho wouldn’t score at home all season! 😀

Whether this was Benitez’s farewell appearance before the Birmingham fans remains to be seen as he would cost between £5m – £7m from Mexico’s Santos Laguna. A return of only four goals all season is hardly a ringing endorsement but I suspect he will score more next season if given the chance. He looks so lively when he plays and has chemistry with the improving Jerome that gives opposition defenders trouble. In this match he could and should have had three and possibly four goals. He tends to take the wrong more difficult option at times when a simpler method would do the trick. In the second half he brought the ball down ten yards out quite beautifully and with a yawning net beckoning a simple right footed side foot, he chose to turn away from goal only for Cort to desperately block the striker’s goal bound left footed effort. Nevertheless these things can be worked on and I hope we keep him because he will get better in a second Premiership season in my view. McLeish said he would “assess the situation” regarding Benitez; let us hope whatever decision he makes it is the right one.

As for Burnley, they had their moments and Martin Paterson caught the eye giving Grégory Vignal a torrid afternoon on our left, while Steven Fletcher’s clever movement and that of Cork in midfield regularly created space. Fletcher twice went close early in the second half, zipping one long-range effort just over the bar and stinging Joe Hart’s palms with another. The visitors remained porous at the back. It took a superb tackle from Leon Cort to prevent Jerome running clean through on goal, while Sebastian Larsson volleyed wide after the Burnley back four were caught napping from a quick throw-in which Benitez dinked delightfully over to the Swede after his run had drawn the defence hopelessly out of position. At the other end, Burnley were unfortunate to see Paterson’s pass roll across the face of goal jinking past Vignal for no one to be in position to deliver the final touch. Danny Fox for the visitors was lucky to escape a second yellow card after a reckless tackle on Stuart Parnaby which injured the Blues fullback in the process so that he had to go off soon after. Burnley halved the deficit when Steven Thompson, played onside by the hapless Vignal, confidently slid the ball past Hart with five minutes to go making the final exchanges nervy when they should not have been. Blues should have won this game by five or six and they are fortunate that Burnley were not good enough to clinch an equaliser and never frankly looked like doing so.

Nevertheless, it has been a great season and we are on course to finish in our highest position since 1959. It was goalkeeper, Joe Hart’s Second City swansong and his presence will be sorely missed. McLeish has likened Hart’s impact to that of Edwin van der Sar, who, he argued, “saves Manchester United 15 points a season”. I would agree that he has saved us at least ten and those points need to be retained next season. Lee Carsley was brought on with a minute left so that he could receive the appreciation of the St Andrews faithful in his last appearance for the club; a nice and fitting touch to a fine servant of the club these last two seasons. A top class keeper is a must, I would, as I say, like to retain Chucho and we need wide men with pace, a proper left back and a centre forward, preferably two who can hold the ball up and importantly score. Even with this wish list a similar finish to what we have now is the most realistic we can hope for since we are a bit away from European football yet.

KRO SOTV

Hart 8; Parnaby 8 (Fahey 79 6), Johnson 8, Ridgewell 8, Vignal 6; Larsson 7, Bowyer 7, Ferguson 9, McFadden 7 (Michel 66 7); Benítez 8, Jerome 7 (Carsley 90 n/a)