Birmingham City suffered one hell of a hangover as they were outplayed and subsequently beaten 3-1 by West Brom at St Andrew's.
It was almost inevitable that Blues would struggle and they certainly did. Five of the Wembley heroes were absent from the line-up which obviously didn't help matters.
Martin Jiranek, Barry Ferguson and Craig Gardner were all missing through injury; Sebastian Larsson and Nikola Zigic were dropped.
The impressive Jiranek was replaced at the heart of the defence by Curtis Davies who looked sluggish. The recent signing from rivals Aston Villa made some good interceptions but his slip up led to the second Baggies goal in a game he'll most likely want to forget.
Alex McLeish had to rearrange the engine room and Keith Fahey played in Ferguson's role alongside Lee Bowyer. Fahey had a decent game but Blues' performance really showed how much they rely on Ferguson. Larsson was replaced by David Bentley who was cup-tied for the final. Bentley struggled to the get in the match and played half of the game on the left hand side. Jean Beausejour played on the right, both men playing on the opposite wing, a tactic I've never been a fan of.
The most baffling decision was dropping Zigic. The Serbian giant bullied Arsenal's defence but McLeish obviously thought that the Baggies back line posed more of a challenge.
The Scot opted for a 4-4-2 formation with Obafemi Martins and Cameron Jerome up front. Both men were completely ineffective but lasted the full 90 minutes. Martins didn't have much of a chance as most balls to him were in the air and his diminutive frame had little opportunity to turn and run at the sluggish Baggies defence. Jerome was his usual self, he works hard but technically he's still a very average player. Birmingham's style of play has been one reason why Zigic has performed so well in recent times but he was left on the bench as Martins and co begged for some aerial support.
Without Gardner, there was no midfield support and the midfield four showed no intent to get forward. This again is a big criticism of McLeish. He was tactically spot on against Arsenal but he seldom changes his tactics, even against the lesser sides in the division. West Brom were invited on to the Birmingham back four all too much and if you didn't know any different, you'd have thought that the Baggies were the home team.
McLeish doesn't believe in the old adage of 'attack is the best form of defence' and relies too much on his defence to keep clean sheets. Things aren't working, especially at home but he seems reluctant to change it and I can't see where the next points are coming from. They face some difficult away games and although they have some very winnable home matches, their recent form at St Andrew's doesn't point to any easy points coming their way.
Birmingham were brought back down to earth with an almighty bump and now the ecstasy of winning their first major trophy since 1963 is quickly being replaced by the fear of relegation.
I think about the only positive I can pick out is that Fahey had a decent game by his standards. Well, passing and moving the ball forward anyway. That said, we still missed Ferguson hugely.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Curtis Davies was part of the problem at the back... I mean in terms of not having played for a while and not having played with the other 3 before. There were times where we gave them far too much space to work with.
I was also disappointed by the lack of urgency at times today, especially once we had gone behind for the second time. I wonder why he didn't bring Zigic on? If we was injured, then he shouldn't be on the bench.
I still think that if we can't find 3 or 4 wins out of the run in we have, then we don't deserve to stay up.
Yeah, he did have a decent game but as you said, wasn't anywhere as effective as Ferguson.
ReplyDeleteI won't judge Davies yet, he hasn't played in a while and needs to settle in. If he keeps playing like that though, he won't see much first team action once Jiranek is back.
We've been like that all season, we only seem to kick into gear once we've conceded and we can't keep doing it. Exactly, I've heard rumours that he was injured but he shouldn't be on the bench if he was, very odd decision by McLeish.
Yeah, I agree. I think we'll be OK but we're not making it easy for ourselves!