I had no chance of getting to this game so had to settle for watching it on the telly. Will came round and joined me for a couple of beers and we endured this match together. I am not going to provide a detailed match report but I thought I would make some observations.
Blackpool deserved to win
Let’s get this statement out of the way early doors; the Seasiders thoroughly deserved their victory in what was a tense, mediocre encounter. The first half was fairly even to be honest but the second was all Blackpool as they took the game to us and could and should have made next week’s second leg the formality of a dead rubber. Stephen Dobbie missed a glorious chance from twelve yards when he put the ball over and Taylor-Fletcher would have scored from even closer in had Ramage not blocked his effort brilliantly. Blackpool had other chances notably one for Tom Ince late on but Blues rode their luck and managed to clear. Make no mistake this could have been the debacle that was Barnsley in a previous play off semi-final. The little maestro, Kevin Phillips had the ball in the net with only his second touch having come on as a sub late on but fortunately for Blues he was offside by some distance. Blues were poor but so fortunately were Blackpool who nevertheless were a bit better than us.
The goal was a fluke
Indeed it was; with barely a minute left before half time, Tom Ince’s speculative shot from twenty yards struck the heel of the unfortunate Curtis Davies to wickedly deflect past the diving Colin Doyle whose valiant effort to save with his legs was thwarted by the pace of the ball taking it between his feet. If anything Blues had probably created the better opportunities in the first half with Davies heading wide early on when well placed, Redmond firing over a pull back from Burke which by the youngster’s standards was poor and Marlon King scraped the paint off the top of the crossbar just before Blackpool scored. The home team kept possession better than us and so enjoyed the majority of the ball but most of it was in their own half or the middle of the park.
Blues had their chances
Birmingham could have come out of this encounter with an undeserved draw in the final minute of the two added on at the end of the game. Blackpool switched off and a lovely cushioned pass by Mutch to Marlon King whose diagonal shot agonisingly clipped the post before bouncing to safety. The centre-forward had the ball in the net earlier but his foot was offside on the replay so no complaints but Blackpool were very lucky on these two occasions to not be robbed of their win.
The tie is still finely poised
Birmingham are still in this with a good chance having ridden their luck. There was not enough tempo about us in my view, we defended too deep and stood off the home midfielders too much. Their players worked harder than ours and that is why Blackpool won the game. Our midfield was too rigid and lacked forward momentum and sufficient movement and when we got the ball we gave it away far too cheaply. N’Daw was dreadful and Mutch wasteful, Elliott and Burke too deep and unable to influence things and too much was asked of Redmond who struggled in his role just behind King. We appeared to have no outlet and King was too isolated and unable to hold the ball up efficiently enough to get our wide players, Burke and Elliott into the game. I cannot see Blues playing this badly at St Andrews and I expect that we will go two up front, press higher up the pitch and put Blackpool on the back foot just like we did earlier in the season when they didn’t look quite so clever. In the circumstances 1-0 behind after last night’s performance is an OK result and we should be grateful it is not a whole lot worse. I said to Will before the game started that whatever happened I just wanted us to be travelling to St Andrews on Wednesday with a chance of making the final at Wembley; I believe that is now the case.
The Good: We are only 1-0 behind
The Bad: The game; absolute dross! Blues just happened to be the more mediocre of the two teams.
The Ugly: Alex Baptiste
Blackpool: Gilks 6, Eardley 6, Crainey 6, Ferguson 5 Evatt 6, Baptiste 6, Angel 6, M Phillips 6, Dobbie 7 (Dicko 75, 5), Taylor-Fletcher 6 (Phillips 75, 6), Ince 7. Not used: Southern, Halstead, Harris.
Birmingham City: Doyle 6. Ramage 6. Murphy 6. Davies 5 Pablo 6. Burke 6. N’Daw 4 Mutch 5. Redmond 5 (Spector 74). King 5 Elliott 5. Not used: Townsend, Rooney, Zigic, Butland.
Referee: Mark Halsey 7: Fair, solid performance and his assistants got the offside calls right.
Bazza KRO SOTV
Hey baz
Good read, totally agree. I said I’d take a one nil defeat to be honest. See you wednesday. Bring ure ST with you on wed, if we make the final I can get ure ticket when we get ours to save you the drive
Ian smith (I sit behind you)
Excuse me, this is a serious football site – not a ticket organising forum!!!
😉
Only joking Ian, thanks for the comment!
Kev
Firstly what dross this article is. Blackpool could have run home quite happily with 2 or 3 nil with the possession and chances they had it was only the awful finishing on absolute sitters that have kept City in the tie. Even though I am a Blackpool fan i am far more objective about the tie than the writer of this article. I believe it will be one cracker of a game and have read Brum fans comments about the atmosphere at St andrews and that they think the Blackpool players will be over-awed. Get a grip we were playing Premier league teams last season at the biggest grounds in the country – bigger teams than Brum.
It will be a big result if we beat you but I believe the big mistake the Brum players will make will be in their attitude to the game.
Lastly if you beat us – fair play – but you won’t find any Pool fans trashing the town after the game or looking for a fight (as was witnessed at Bloomfield Road)
Er……. excuse me Steve but if you bother to read the article properly I actually say all the way through that Blackpool were better than Blues, that they deserved to win and that they could and should have won by more! There is absolutely no disagreement with what you say; Blackpool’s finishing was poor and that is something they may come to regret in the final analysis. Please cut out all the rubbish about playing ‘bigger’ teams than us in the Premiership last season; the thing both teams have in common is that they weren’t good enough and that is why we are both where we are now. As for the result being big if you win; yes it will but it will be the case for us too so don’t fool yourself that Birmingham’s attitude will be anything else but totally professional at St Andrews on Wednesday; naturally I expect that Birmingham will be a different team to the pale shadow we saw on Friday night but that is not born of arrogance or over confidence but what our fans have witnessed from our team all season. May the best side prevail. As for trashing the town, I don’t know about that as I wasn’t in Blackpool on Friday. If a few idiots discredited us then I condemn them totally and utterly; there is no place for such behaviour at football in my opinion.
Kev b8ll – I totally agree – but haven’t seen Baz and don;t have his number so this was my only method of contact
Steve doesn’t seem very happy – there appears to be a lot of bitterness there, after reading some of the bias on the Blackpool sites then I believe he should address his concerns there first.
Have to say I was annoyed at how poor we played, but not worried. I believe that we can win by at least two goals, will be interesting to see of Spec plays right back and Fahey is injected up to his eyeballs in order to play…
E
Well i think its wake up and smell the coffee time. Most reports are saying that CH is set to become the new West Brom manager. Have the players sniffed the coffee and thats why it was a shambles the other night? Interesting.
Ian, I was joking mate. I have no problem with your comment aimed at Baz. 🙂 If you would like each other’s email addresses, just let me know and I can oblige.
Steve I think you were being harsh on Baz’s report. He clearly states that Blackpool were the better side and deserved to win – mainly because they were! However over the game, we did defend well at times too and it was said at HT on Sky that for all the possession there was no real penetration in the 1st half up to the goal, and even that was a shot going wide.
If you had scored another 2 I don’t think I could have complained, however the fact that you didn’t does reflect on two things. Firstly the defence, which as I have said did pretty well on the whole, but secondly your finishing. Until KP came on, they didn’t look that dangerous. I can remember a couple of good chances but if the net doesn’t bulge then they can be fantastic shots – but by default were in-effective. I feel Baz was more than generous to you as a side.
I genuinely can’t believe we will play that badly on Wed, and I totally agree with you if we think the job is done, that is stupid – however there is a difference with having confidence and believing you can do a job. Most Blues fans believe we can on Wednesday, because the most of this season we have. I would have thought the team would think that too!
So WILL we do it? Now THAT’S a different question. This is the Blues, we NEVER do it the easy way. So expect to go 1-0 up and us to get a couple of goals and then extra time and then… well who knows!
In regard to the trouble, complete morons. They won’t get ANY support on here.
Kev
Many thanks for the support Ian and Kev. Can’t understand why Steve from Blackpool is so disparaging about my article when I’ve actually admitted that his team were better than us on the night. Ian mate, I have always resolved to swap numbers and email addresses with you at the game but have never somehow got round to it. Will definitely do it on Wednesday 🙂 KRO
Did steve see we hit the woodwork twice, once in the first half when we skimmed the top of the bar,and again on 90 minutes when we hit the post..