View from the, er, North. (or, Lotte learns the hard way) Birmingham v Ipswich

With Baz unable to attend last night, we needed a sub. Mersey Pete from the forum kindly stepped in.

Kev

I’ll be honest with you – although I’ve got a season ticket I don’t usually go to midweek games. I know every inch of the M6 now, hate it, and prefer to go by train – not possible in midweek. But as I’d been on holiday for the first games of the season this was my opener and I was really looking forward to it. So, the M6 it was.

My first task was to locate my new seat. I’ve been a bit of a St Andrews nomad over the years. I abandoned my spiritual home – the Tilton end of the Kop – when we went all seater one or two years ago. I’d stood there since 1955 but I reckoned a bit of the magic would go once it was seated and covered and I’ve only been back once since. We lost 7-0. My home since then had been the Railway End, later splendidly renamed the Gil Merrick Stand, and the front row of the upper tier suited me fine. But it’s been closed so last season it was the back row of the main stand (damaged my hand on a girder every time we scored) and this season I moved to the front row of the upper tier, an excellent choice as it turns out.

Ah, the game, I hear you asking. An unchanged side was the first novelty – who can remember that? Clark has settled on 442 at home, it seems, and in the Championship this is fair enough. But it’s not a conventional 442, with no real left winger, and two very similar centre forwards. Sure enough, it seemed from the start that Thomas and Donaldson, with very similar qualities, don’t fit together naturally as a striking partnership. That may come, of course, and our second goal was an encouraging sign.

I thought Blues started OK, but we did give Ipswich a couple of chances, one of which Randolph saved smartly. We created our own chances, of course, notably Novak with a header and then a good run and shot, and Thomas’s slice wide after being set up by Cotterill, who looks a good player. I was still trying to identify some of the substitutes and this was my downfall. As I was trying to work out who the guy with wispy hair was (Duffy, I think) I failed to turn round in time to see our corner and the ball was in the net. Still, when I leapt in the air at least I didn’t bash my hand against a roof girder. I’ve seen the goal since and it was well taken by Edgar, but the first in a series of corners being badly dealt with by both defences – there was nobody near Edgar.

We had slightly the better of the first half but it was strangely unimpressive, with Caddis looking like a fish out of water in central midfield. My enjoyment of the game was enhanced by someone called ‘Uncle David’ in the row behind me. He appeared to be introducing his two young nieces, Charlotte (Lotte to her friends) and Millie, to the delights of football in general and supporting Blues in particular. Some of his advice was, to be honest, on the basic side – ‘they play 45 minutes each half’ – but Lotte in particular seemed very keen, showing great promise as a Blues fan. Their Dad was there but seemed to be a mute as I didn’t hear a word from him.

Second half we played a bit better, with Caddis getting more into the game, so it was a surprise when Ipswich equalised from a cross that everyone seemed to miss. It had to be an ex Wolves player, just to make it worse. This leaving players unmarked from crosses was a recurring feature, with Ipswich having two more chances from corners when nobody picked up their player. Still, no harm done when Donaldson scored a cracker, set free by Thomas. Donaldson has a bit of pace and showed a lot of composure to slot the ball home. I loved Cameron Jerome but this was just the sort of chance he missed with depressing regularity in his last couple of seasons with us.

We were in charge of the game now. Caddis was getting more and more involved and it was surely a penalty when he was chopped down as he drove into the penalty area. That would have finished Ipswich off but you then began to fear the worst. The catastrophic finale was a series of mishaps, some of our own making. I’m not one of Clark’s harshest critics, and I’ve just about recovered from the shock of his bizarre team selection against Blackburn, but he did make some odd decisions as the game entered its final stages. We were still playing OK but there was plainly a case for closing the game down. It was Clark’s way of doing it that seemed strange. First of all, taking off the combative Davis for the anonymous Gleeson didn’t help, though Davis may have been struggling with an injury. And surely the best way of shoring up the midfield would have been to take off a forward, not to reshuffle the whole midfield to slot a full back/centre half into midfield, moving the by now influential Caddis on to the wing.

The substitutions were greeted by the familiar ‘Whoooooo?’ of a small St Andrews crowd in pretty good form, but Uncle David could not explain this to Lotte. The best he could come up with was that it started about ten years ago. I nearly intervened to explain that the purpose is to belittle and hopefully intimidate, the opposition.

The other thing to do is to waste a few of the unnecessary seconds added by the (poor) referee is to take the ball into the corner . Donaldson was given this advice in no uncertain terms from the main stand but he wasn’t listening, tried to create a chance, lost the ball, and it was Berra again, with Mick McCarthy celebrating far too enthusiastically for my liking right under my nose.

Uncle David disappeared immediately after this, leaving poor Lotte and Maisie in the charge of their silent dad with no explanation of how such an appalling thing could happen. I hope he’s ashamed of himself, though I knew how he was feeling.

My conclusion? First of all, if Ipswich are amongst the promotion favourites then we have little to worry about. They showed fighting spirit but were just about second best to us. As for Blues, I agreed with the choice of Edgar as man of the match but the central defenders did leave some people unmarked at set pieces, something which should be sorted out on the training ground. Grounds looked Ok in defence but pretty hopeless going forward – I don’t know what Hancox has done wrong. The central midfield plainly isn’t quite good enough for a 442, which is why Clark plays Novak on the left as he leaves the midfield a bit less exposed. But Novak isn’t a left winger and is better suited to 4231 which we may use away from home. I see Jordan Ibe is going on loan again and may end up at Bolton where he’s been promised game time. Clark could have done worse than try to get him back, and maybe he did.

So, I don’t see relegation worries this time round. But until we get new owners the feelgood factor won’t be back at St Andrews. Will that stop me going and loving watching Blues? Don’t be daft – some of the missing thousands who live a few miles from the ground should take a leaf out of my and Baz’s book.

Pete C (aka Merseypete)