Saturday morning soon rolls round after Tuesday evening’s reverse at Reading. I have got over it like many but defeats like that still rankle even after all these years. Even Paul Ince admitted that his team rode their luck. The problem with our beloved club is and always has been that we simply don’t beat the teams we should beat and until we learn to do so we will never be successful. Reading are such a team. I mean no disrespect to them but they are a poor side at the moment which is why they are where they are. What have Blues managed to do against them this season? Yes; lose home and away! Six points extra to our tally would be looking very handy right now but I rest my case. We are mediocre to be sure but we should be better than 18th in this league. However, we are better than last season so we should be grateful for small mercies.
I am always up early nowadays and having made Mrs Bazza a coffee and taken it to her, I settled at the computer to check on the trains. It made grim reading. There were none from Blackwater because of repairs to the station from the recent storms so a replacement bus it was. This meant I had less time than I thought and had to look lively to get down to Blackwater for 9.08 a full hour and twenty minutes ahead of my usual time. I made it in time and collected my tickets from the machine which thankfully was working. I caught the bus and got to Reading on schedule to wait my connection to Coventry over an hour and a half later which was a bore. I hate hanging about on station platforms but at least it gives me time to start writing this drivel. It was a truly beautiful morning with bright winter sunshine, crisp underfoot with the birds chirping their early chorus and the sight of crocuses and daffodils coming into bloom declaring the promise of Spring and warmer times to come.
Away from football, the major news item is, of course, the expected, but nevertheless, wholly unjustified invasion of Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The sanctions and tub thumping by Western politicians will only serve to make our lives harder and more expensive. I’m an ex-Army medic and a statement made by my dear old Dad just before he died has always resonated with me. Dad was an artillery man in WWII and he said to me one night in the Chestnuts Pub in Garretts Green; “Son, I don’t pretend to know much but when it comes to war, I know this; there’s no glory in it son, none at all!” A tear then rolled down his cheek as he remembered lost comrades. Compared to him, my wartime experiences in the Balkans pale into insignificance but I saw enough dreadful pain and suffering to know that he was right. As I said this has nothing to do with football but the game could help. Amongst the sanctions, FIFA and UEFA must ban the Russian national team and their clubs from international competition. Sport generally is important in the national psyche of any country and isolating Russia at this moment will serve to make it clear to the Russian public at large that the evil expansionist ambitions of their leader are untenable. Exclusion from major sporting competition helped to bring down apartheid in South Africa and I believe it will help in this situation. I saw yesterday that for the World Cup qualifiers, Ukraine and Russia will be made to play their home games on neutral territory. This is not good enough; nothing but an outright ban will do for Russia and that applies to all sport in my opinion. I see that Poland have just refused to play Russia in their play off game so the game’s authorities now have a decision to make. It seems pretty obvious to me but we’ll see I guess.
On to the present and Huddersfield Town have been tearing up the league with a sixteen game unbeaten run in all competitions and an impressive number of clean sheets. Moreover they have nine wins in that sequence and with two wingers playing full back and two wing backs playing centre-half I feared the worst. I expected to get beat in this game and I was not disavowed of that belief at the end. Worse was to follow when we discovered that Lyle Taylor who was in the original starting lineup failed to emerge onto the pitch at kick off and in his place was Lukas Jutkiewicz. I can only assume Taylor picked up some sort of injury during the warm up.
The truth is that playing with two full backs at centre half and two wingers as full backs, this game was hardly likely to end well. Huddersfield are a rugged, no nonsense team that are well drilled, solid defensively, have an excellent goalkeeper and if you give them opportunities, they will take them with both hands and return to Yorkshire with the points. Blues didn’t play badly but couldn’t break down a stubborn Town rearguard. Their success has been built on clean sheets and it showed today. They don’t have to be great to win games if you know you are unlikely to concede and their first goal came from a corner that simply wasn’t defended properly. Things were not helped by the sight of Maxime Colin going lame on 26 minutes. He has a thigh strain apparently and was replaced by Ivan Sunjic who went into midfield with Gary Gardner dropping back to centre half! Before we had properly reorganised, we conceded a corner.
A whipped ball was delivered to the far post where I counted three Huddersfield players in splendid isolation apart from Gardner who appeared to be the only one there. An opposition player, I think Levi Colwill, chested the ball towards goal and it seemed to come off Gardner before ending up in the net. It was a shocking lapse in basic defending and I don’t care that we have people out of position and they are doing their best in difficult circumstances, when a ball comes across the six yard box to the far post someone, anyone has to get something on it to divert it away or preferably the keeper has to take command of the situation and put a big fist on the ball. Once Huddersfield scored they never looked like losing. Less than 27 minutes gone and it was already an uphill struggle. The second Huddersfield goal came a minute from the break when Gardner half cleared to Bela whose touch around the penalty spot laid the ball into the path of O’Brien who gleefully accepted the gift side footing in for 2-0. Blues responded well to both set backs and the visitors had Lee Nicholls to thank for an excellent save from a fierce Hernandez shot with the score 1-0. The stats reveal that Blues had 60% possession more passes with greater accuracy despite me moaning about the lack of care with the ball throughout the match!
It counted for naught as despite Blues giving it a right good go in the second half they simply couldn’t get behind Huddersfield often enough and when we did get a chance, Nicholls saved brilliantly from Hernandez to push a fierce shot onto the bar and was fortunate that his far post came to his rescue on another occasion. The game began to peter out in the last ten minutes as Blues had finally shot their bolt. Blues played some nice stuff at times but Huddersfield were too strong and too solid. Chris pointed out that with proper defenders in place the game ends up 0-0. I suspect he was right. Blues were unfortunate but we have conceded 22 goals in ten games since the injury crisis and defensive returns cannot happen soon enough. In fairness, especially second half, Gary Gardner looked one of our better players despite filling a totally alien position. Onel Hernandez was unlucky not to score. Lukas Jutkiewicz did not have his greatest game and presumably had not expected to play from the start. He looked rusty and out of sorts and was well marshalled by the visitors’ defence all of whom are big units. No, it was not our day. When does this season end? The sooner the better!
The Good: The fact that Small Heath Alliance played at home for the first time since 1905! This was in lieu of the last season if Peaky Blinders which starts tomorrow.
The Bad: The injury to Maxime Colin. Krystian Pedersen is our last recognised senior defender left.
The Ugly: There was definitely a stamp on Jordan James’ ankle in the first half. Had the referee (more about him below) seen it, it was arguably a red card.
Birmingham City: Neil Etheridge 5, Maxime Colin 5 (Ivan Sunjic 25, 6) Krystian Pedersen 6, Jeremie Bela 6, Jordan James 6 (Tahith Chong 66, 5) Ryan Woods 6, Jordan Graham 7, Gary Gardner 7, Juninho Bacuna 6, Lukas Jutkiewicz 5, Onel Hernandez 8.
Subs not used: Connal Trueman, Taylor Richards, Marcel Oakley, Tate Campbell.
Goals: None
Bookings: None
Huddersfield Town: Lee Nicholls 8, Oliver Turton 7, Matty Pearson 7, Levi Colwill 7, Harry Toffolo 7, Jonathan Russell 7, Jonathan Hogg 7, Lewis O’Brien 7, Sorba Thomas 7 (Josh Koroma 90, N/A) Jordan Rhodes 6 (Danny Ward 79, N/A) Duane Holmes 6 (Danel Sinani 77, 6)
Subs not used: Josh Ruffels, Jamal Blackman, Naby Sarr, Carel Eiting.
Goals: Colwill 27, O’Brien 44.
Bookings: None
Referee: David Webb 4; this was a poor performance by this official in my view. He missed far too many key decisions. Jutkiewicz was pulled to the ground by a defender who had two fistfuls of his shirt at the shoulders right on the edge of the box in the first half. He missed the stamp on Jordan James’ ankle and failed to issue yellow cards for repeated fouls. Huddersfield naturally took advantage of the situation and who can blame them. However, he did not influence the result; that was down to rank bad defending albeit by players not used to it.
Attendance: 17,318
Bazza KRO
Bowyer had nothing to loose in this game so why not start with Oakley and Campbell?? and why not on earth did he not bring on Campbell when Colin was injured and why he played Jukeiwitz l never know.Strange decisions for sure that did not help.