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Club Focus - Birmingham - Blues to pick up easy points?
For the first time since the November 9, Alex McLeish decided to change the line up against West Ham and it didn’t pay off. His hand was forced through Christian Benitez’s injury but the inclusion of Craig Gardner and Keith Fahey were tactical. The tactics did not work.
Although Gardner and Fahey looked comfortable on the ball, they were not able to contain the West Ham midfield in the same way as the consistent midfield in previous games would have. Admittedly, they were beaten by two excellent goals and the outcome could have been very different had Cameron Jerome taken advantage of a golden first half opportunity, but the result still has a large significance. McLeish has had to temper the urge to change his line-up for twelve games now and that urge finally broke on Wednesday. It was a risky strategy and especially dangerous when considering the drastic nature of the change. The bottom line is that Birmingham were beaten by a side that, just under two months ago in the midst of Birmingham’s unbeaten run, never looked like they would be able to beat the Midlands side. This time round, a mixture of brilliance from Alessandro Diamanti, rashness from Scott Dann, poor tactical changes from McLeish and apparent lack of confidence from Blues on the whole, led to Birmingham suffering their first defeat to a bottom half team in seventeen games.
Since their run ended at Chelsea, Birmingham have had a battling draw against Tottenham, a fortuitous victory of local rivals Wolverhampton Wanderers and now, a convincing loss to West Ham. Although not enough to worry McLeish, the upcoming fixtures are vital for how Birmingham’s season is concluded. They have six consecutive games against teams lower in the league table that they could conceivably beat. A loss to any of these teams would not be a disaster as Birmingham are seemingly safe from relegation and their season now bears no significance other than a race for positions, but a low return of points would show exactly what the distant observer has thought. Birmingham are essentially a side that has been put together by a very good manager. He has taken three young English players and made them the core of his squad, the players around them (Dann, Johnson and Hart) are not the sort that the clubs around them have. Birmingham have four first team regulars that are comfortably in their 30’s and one player that had previously retired from football. Along with that, Birmingham have players such as Liam Ridgewell and Craig Gardner who failed to make the grade at Aston Villa. They have Cameron Jerome and Christian Benitez who both flatter to deceive more often than not, they have Sebastian Larsson who can be infuriatingly inconsistent and finally James McFadden who like Larsson, is not consistent enough to be deemed worthy of a place in the starting line up of a European challenging club anymore.
It seems that teams have found the way to crack the safe that was Birmingham’s defence. So, just how did Birmingham do it for the first half of the season? Much of the emphasis was based on defensive duties which worked perfectly as Johnson, Dann et al executed their jobs to perfection and made Birmingham an impenetrable force. As the season grew with age, their midfield began to boss games and help the defence out which led to sides struggling to beat them. The attack has always been a cause for concern but because of the success of the nine men behind them, it was largely forgiven. But now, even after three games, Birmingham are beginning to look penetrable and beatable. Perhaps Scott Dann’s rash challenge which led to West Ham’s first goal was a sign that times were changing. Earlier in the season, that tackle would have been perfectly timed or not performed, Dann would have had allowed the move to develop and West Ham would have more than likely been crowded out.
As said, this game cannot be taken as a true indication for the rest of Birmingham’s season but since the new year, they have only taken five out of a possible 15 points. In their defence, it was a tough run which included the two favourites for the title and Tottenham but the form that they are now beginning to show is more like the form that was expected at the start of the season.
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