Ok, so here’s the thing. Yes I can be a bit negative about the Blues in regard to matches, however I normally get over a bad result pretty quickly. I don’t dwell on them, I normally shrug them off and move on. Sunday was different. I am STILL gutted. I don’t think I have seen such an abject performance as I witnessed Sunday afternoon. I have followed the Blues since the early ’70s and I include all of that.
I can’t bring myself to even record the adjectives I might use to describe it. The lack of apparent commitment, effort, pace or guile was just shocking. When you rewind to that herculean effort at Wembley, and then looked at Sunday – neutrals would genuinely not believe it was the same team. (Yes I know people were missing, but you get my point).
We didn’t force a save out of the keeper on a day where we needed to win, that is unforgiveable. I could have forgiven a 2-0 defeat if we had hit the bar or seen a number of saves, but we didn’t. It was like the players just didn’t care.
It is from this backdrop, that I actually think the side also think we are going to go down. Why else would there be no effort? Add to that, that apparently some players were out boozing just a few days before our huge game. Where is the respect for the fans, team members, management and owners, (assuming that the story is true of course).
The thing is that this has been coming for a while now. Our performances in the league prior to the cup and definitely since the cup, have been poor on the whole. I have said all through the season that we are lacking the key bit in midfield of pace. Sunday was a perfect example of that. Whichever league we are in next season, we definitely need pace. Did anyone watch the play off semi-finals? Cardiff, Swansea, Reading and Forest ALL have pace.
So what about our last game? We are in the stupid situation that we could win and go down, or lose and stay up! I just can’t see us getting anything at Spurs if recent performances are anything to go by. Actually, if Spurs were watching us on Sunday – I reckon they’ll be looking forward to scoring a hat full.
Wigan are at Stoke and Blackpool are at Man Utd. On paper you have to say none of us should win, so it’ll be about goals conceded. At the moment we are 1 better than Blackpool and 2 better than Wigan. So the task is simple. At least match those sides and we stay up. The addition to that, is that if we draw and Wolves lose by 2 or more, we will move above them.
HOWEVER, at the moment Wigan have found some form, so I actually can see them winning at Stoke. For that reason, I believe we will go down.
Alex McLeishs’ first game was away at Spurs when Seb scored that cracker in the last minute to win 3-2 after we were 2-1 down. There are a number of fans calling for the manager to go. If he does, I suppose that there is some sort of symmetry in that. I personally don’t think this would be the right thing to do. I would want to give Eck the opportunity to get us back up again.
So what do you think? I have put forward some thoughts around the negative, however I know some of you feel differently. Tomorrow I will post a blog by someone who believes we can do it on Sunday.
Kev
How can you say that the manager should stay his signings in the main have been poor, his tactics leave me and others bewildered, frustrated, somtimes just plain angry, then judging by some performances this season ( last Sunday for example ) his motivational skills seem non exsistant.
Time and time again we set up in a negative formation, whilst some people may say this is justified against the likes of Chelsea , Man u and the rest of the so called ellite , I disagree let’s look at the facts how many points did it actually gain us.In the games against the currect top 6 ( with 1 still to go ) we achieved 8 points from a possible 33 scored 7 goals and conceeded 23 ( – 16 ).So was it worth it, or am I being negative, would you not rather loose 5 – 3 knowing that at least we had a go at em, who nows we might have even won 1 or 2 of them.Ok it’s fare to say witout those 8 points we would allready be relegated but and this is a big but would we ( all Blue noses ) feel quit as bad as we do now.
K.R.O S.O.T.V
I agree , 4-5-1 against the big boys to defend from mid field , but against those around us ?, come on , west brom scored 6 , we took 1 point off wolves , really mcleish is and has always been a defensive minded manger , ok we are short of goal scorers but he needs to bring in some of the young guys when we weren’t in such a poor position. As Yeung has stated , there will not be a lot of money next year whatever our position!
Many of our senior / older players will never manage to compete in championship with more games plus europe and domestic cup runs , so had mcleish brought some of the youth through , maybe just maybe we may of been in a better postion .
Remember Redmond & Mutch against Bolton in cup ??
one more point , and a very worrying one , we go down , attendances will drop like a stone , not only will less home fans go but we will lose big away following such as Man Utd , Chelsea and the vile. less revenues , less investment .
None of the teams who went down last year have come back up ? big teams , now nowhere really , Leeds , Middlesborough , Derby
Some telling ‘ stats ‘ there Dean , added to the fact that Kev alludes to ‘ Giving Eck a chance to get us back up …….AGAIN ! ” it all tells a story really doesn’t it ? How many managers actually take clubs down , then back up , down again , and then back up etc etc ( ad nauseam )
I don’t like criticizing managers , especially ones that have won a cup , but as I’ve bored people on here before , we have consistantly set up to avoid defeat time and again this season ( you can’t actually do that in a cup competition , so we HAD to go on the offensive – see my point ? ) and look where it’s got us.
Even with the Dynamic Duo and Foster at their ( fully fit ) best , you can’t invite any single Premiership team to try their luck at you for 90mins !
Regarding our current position , neutrals will rightly tell us , You’re where you belong ! “
TR7 – correct , we play defensive in every league game , scored the least goals in the prem and have a “striker” ? in Jerome who may work hard but has not got a footballing brain. Take Berbatov , his work rate nothing lcompared to Jerome but his awareness , understanding and ability to read the game creates goals !
We are where we are , sadly i think we may avoid defeat but Wolves and Wigan will win and will will go down , if we go down by goal difference scored v conceeded , well enough said !!
Sadly I can’t see any hope of us staying up, and to be honest I am not sure that we deserve to after the abysmal performances of late.
As for McLeish, in an interview on Sunday he commented on how we had found it difficult to score last season, well why didn’t he try to rectify that by either buying someone capable of scoring or changing tactics?
Personally I am sick of paying £30 to be bored rigid for 90 minutes, so I have to say thanks for the cup Alex but please go now.
get rid of him! doesnt like players with pace and who can go forwards with the ball,so easy to play play against us with our slow side to side build up play. Who else would play jerome on his own after 23 games without scoring,and keep playing him on his own! Attack Eck for gods sake!!
Time to drop ferguson sunday,he has been woefull since the cup final,get Mutch in the team and Nathan Redmond on the bench to come on at spurs,bit more energy in the side then
Agree with Ross. The old buggers have done little or nothing for us this season, one game aside, so put the youngsters in, tell them to enjoy it, and confuse the hell out of ‘Arry’s boys. They must be rubbing their hands at the prospect of finishing with a hatful of goals. It’s not much of a plan I agree, but it will be a better spectacle than watching the old guard pass it sideways and backwards and Jerome running his crackers off. Which he will, and fair play to him.
I think some fans forget we have yoyoed constantlyin the 136 years Blues have been a team. It might not be right, it might not be fair but it’s what we do and it’s not easy to stop.
Our injury list has been so bad that anyone outside the top 6 would have struggled – Sunderland are in exactly the same boat as us, but didn’t have cup runs interfering in their plans when they did manage to get points on the board. It’s only their pre Christmas run that has kept them in this division, and they’ve spent millions more than us. Villa, without Bent would be on 36 points and virtually relegated. They took a huge gamble on Bent and it’s paid off for them – for us he’d probably be on our enormous injury list.
I refuse to see it as a coincidence that since Zigic has been injured we’ve only picked up a handful of points. We need intelligent strikers – Jerome for all his running is no Kevin Doyle, he’s not clever enough to lead the line on his own, but when all your strikers have had knocks, are out or over 35 then it’s hard to get consistency.
West Ham played lovely attacking flowing football, they went 4-3-3 and look where they are, already in the Championship. I don’t understand the rhetoric that it’s ok to lose as long as you play lovely football. the law of averages has never been kind to Blues, I’d prefer to grind out results if that’s what it takes to keep us where we are. Pretty football can come later. Survival is what matters.
If we drop out of the Premier League then all our efforts to win the Carling Cup will be in vain. We won’t attract the right sort of players to play in Europe as who wants to play in the Championship? God forbid we have to become a selling club, I couldn’t face another 20 years of mediocrity which is what happened last time we were a selling club. I believe that if we’d managed to get more points on the board we’d be seeing a lot more of our youth players playing; blooding in for the new season as we are an aging squad. We don’t have that luxury.
What this season will have taught us is that we have an alarming lack of depth in our squad, that we can’t carry 8 players out and then to lose 4 in 1 game; we only have 3 substitutions! We’ve seen the players we brought in to strengthen out for most of the second half of the season, Martins, Zigic, Hleb, Bentley as well as losing first teamers like Bowyer, Gardner, Ferguson, Jiranek and Jerome for games at a time. Not to forget McFadden and Dann on the out for the season list. Every player has picked up some sort of injury. While ones like Roger Johnson have battled on, it’s blatantly clear to see that some are only on about 70% fitness and about 10% energy but we don’t have anyone else to step in. Derbyshire and Phillips were woeful on Sunday but they were all we had. Asante plays for our under 18s, it might have been nice to see him play but we couldn’t as all our substitutions were for injuries.
We have no right to have expected greater things than last year, 17th place this year would always have been a victory for us: another year in the EPL, the ability to attract better players, to strengthen and to push forward knowing that the dreaded second season syndrome is past.
Promotion, 9th place, a cup win another cup quarter final are not things achieved in 3 seasons with a bad manager. A win on Sunday will see people continue to grumble about Eck instead of seeing him for what he will be. The most successful manager in Birmingham City’s history.