First of all, get the rant out of the way. Seb Larsson, please remove your head from the confines of your backside. You’re not Maradona. You’re not George Best. You are a fairly average midfielder who in my opinion hasn’t hit top form on any regular basis for a few years now. The fact that you apparently refuse to sign a new contract suggests you want out (though I doubt whether you’ll go to a better club than us if you do go). Fair enough. But stop whinging at referees constantly. Stop whinging at other players; in particular stop putting set-pieces and crosses nowhere near anyone in a blue shirt and then looking to blame others for it. It does my nut in.
Now, every time we get the ball why do we look to hoof it on to Nikola Zigic’s head? Actually that’s a daft question, the obvious answer being that we do it because he’s taller than any other Premier League player. But my point is that despite his size eight times out of ten he will be beaten in the air, particularly if he’s jumping for a long-ball from the back. That has been obvious since he came here, but months later we still do it. We still deploy the same tactic which hasn’t worked much at all. WHY? Surely common sense dictates we try and play it to his feet if he can’t win it in the air. And if common sense can’t tell us that then look at Peter Crouch, Zig’s long lost brother. As good with his feet as he is in the air, perhaps better. Spurs play it to his feet more often than not; now we’re not as good as Spurs, but we have some decent ballplayers, especially in midfield. We should stop by-passing them.
Up front generally I think we lack something. Where is the man who can beat a defender with skill, who can make a chance out of nothing? The Forss used to be that man, Nicklas Bendtner used to do it when he could be arsed. Chucho used to do it, though at times he looked about as likely to score in games as me. Zig’s still trying to figure out at which point the ball to him will drop from the clouds above. Kevin Phillips isn’t even a short-term solution by the looks of things. Cameron Jerome often has the first touch of a brick wall. Matt Derbyshire I’m unsure about because I have barely seen him play. We desperately need a striker in January, one with flair, who is guaranteed to get us a few goals, because we will toil until May if we don’t.
The Wolves game summed it up. Playing against in my opinion two of the worst centre-halves in the Premier League in Stearman and Berra, we didn’t look like scoring. We didn’t give them much to deal with. If we had I think we would’ve scored, I think any sort of flair would’ve seen Wolves buckle Sunday. Fair play to Wolves, they completely deserved the victory, only an idiot would think otherwise. But they weren’t a great side, they didn’t have a single player on the pitch Sunday who I would really want in the Blues team, I still think they are pretty nailed on to go into the Championship next season. Realistically, all they did yesterday was fight a hell of a lot more than we did; as mentioned four of their best players were out Sunday (Henry, Jarvis, Kightly and Doyle), they were there for the taking, and yet they gave us a 1-0 thrashing.
A lack of fight is more worrying than any lack of ability in my opinion. Even if they are pretty naff overall, you’ve got to expect Wolves to fight, to make it difficult for you. The fact that they were more up for the fight than us suggests there was an issue with the mentality of our players, as alluded to by Alex McLeish in a press conference afterwards. I’m thinking they may have thought that they would win if they turned up. Larsson’s whinging, general sloppiness in terms of passing; even Scott Dann lost the ball in stupid areas by messing about. The fact that the players may be deluded to think they are good enough to be relaxed about the fact that they were going to win yesterday worries me. It’s an old cliché but there is never an easy game in the Premiership, as Sunday proved, and we’ve got to be up for the fight. We might’ve been better had Gardner and Ridge started, because those two will fight, but there’s no excuse.
Overall, the league table suggests that we’re too close to the drop zone for comfort at the moment, and the fixture list suggests that we’re going to have to play out of our skins to get results in the next few weeks; Newcastle, Everton, United and Arsenal isn’t going to be anything other than extremely tough. Still, Blues under Alex McLeish always seem to pull out all the stops when backs are glued to the wall, let’s hope they do it again. Keep Right On.
My sentiments entirely Nat. You’ve echoed what I said in my report but in much blunter and forceful terms and every word is right. The lack of spirit and urgency was the thing that blackened my mood the most and the fact that after ten minutes you could see that we would get nowhere by hoofing the ball forwards did not register with our management team until an hour had elapsed; it was too late by then. I agree about Larsson; I would swop him for Jarvis any day since the latter is miles faster, he doesn’t moan all the time and his much better delivery into the box is one of the things that is giving Wolves any hope they have of survival. January can’t come quick enough and PLEASE Big Eck can we import some pace as well as goal threat into the side?
KRO SOTV
Dillusional Bluenoses
We have 12 fit outfeild players, we have had players playing out of position for weeks, yes results have been poor & we are where we are for that reason.
But aprt from your 2 centrehalves & possibly Murphy (who was your best out field player by a mile) I can’t think of any of your grandads army who would get in our squad when our lot are fully fit.
I think you lot should be more concerned about your own relegation battle & pray your home form holds up, coz you are without doubt the worst team I’ve seen this season, including West Ham.
Good Luck
UTW
I didn’t see the match, I’ve only read the reports. They all say the same thing, Blues did not turn up and it was probably our worst performance since we got back in the PL. The question is why. I know we’re pretty limited creatively but as a Blues supporter you get used to that but to show no heart or fight and to allow ourselves to be bullied (McLeish’s words) is frankly alarming.
It seems Wolves did what we used to do, make up in effort for the lack of class. McLeish needs to stop making excuses, I would love to see him get angry with the players. The trouble is we can’t drop many because of a lack of depth in the squad. As Nat said without Ridgewell and Gardner it appears we had no one to drive the team on. Ferguson has been disappointing most of the season why not give Michel a game. Give Redmond 30 minutes at least he has pace and will frighten defenders, we’ll never know if is good enough if he doesn’t get some experience. Mutch is playing well for Watford bring him back in January and let him compete for a place with Bowyer and Fahey he can’t be any worse.
We need a massive improvement on Saturday but Newcastle are a good side and beating Liverpool means their confidence will be high and after the Wolves game you wouldn’t bet on Blues winning.
Everybody seems to forget that last season was much the same.Without excellent performances from hart and the collective defence we would have been close or maybe in the relegation zone by the end of the season.For me none of last seasons problem areas have been addressed.Only one quality signing was made ( Foster ),Kleb is past his best Zigic for my money is less than useless.Derbyshire is still an open book he hasn’t really been given a chance to prove his worth.In my opinion we need Two strikers and some pace out wide and in midfield,failing that why not give the kids a chance Valles, Redmond and recall Much If nothing else at least we would be watching the future and not suffering da ja vue evry week.
KRO
Some good comments , but as Dean says , the shortcomings of last season were never really addressed. Foster is possibly one of the best purchases in Blues history , and I’m not getting things out of proportion here ! he is simply magnificent , and will only get better.
The criticisms of Larsson are unfortunately valid , he is a whinger , he is ‘ hot and cold ‘ and he does seem to have a disproportionately high opinion of himself. I think he went a whole season’s worth of games without scoring one of his supposed ‘ trademark ‘ free kicks a couple of years ago !
I’m not even going to waste mine and anyone elses time by commenting on the unbelievably incompetent Zigic.
I’m beginning to imagine Big Eck’s team talks , and they must go something like this.
” Right lads , just stop them scoring , and if ANYONE of you ( including you Ben ) can sneak a goal , that’ll do ! off you go “
Big Sam went for playing unattractive football with a lack of ambition…home support dropped off due to uninspiring team selections. Suppose they looked at their Bolton nieghbours and saw what was possible!Wonder who will be next to go….alex maybe, not exactly fun to watch is it???
Can we have an article on the strengths and attributes of Keith Fahey? I think if he was bit cold and fancied a cheeky cuppa no one would notice he’d gone. Now Zig and Cam maybe talentless but you know they are about but to be the invisible man every game that can’t be good.
Can we have an article on the strengths and attributes of Keith Fahey? I think if he was bit cold and fancied a cheeky cuppa no one would notice he’d gone. Now Zig and Cam maybe talentless but you know they are about but to be the invisible man every game that can’t be good…..
This, this and THIS again. Nothing personal against the bloke who is a tidy little player and has done some decent things for Blues at times, but he’s NOT GOOD ENOUGH. Lightweight, mostly inefective and as the previous writer mentioned, apt to disappear for entire halves at a time. Sorry, but he’s a VERY poor man’s Bryan Hughes (much missed) who i would suspect, even now, would be a better, more productive player for us in the Prem than Fahey.