EFL Championship Match 14 - Southampton 3 Birmingham City 1

 

A Clearly Onside THB Celebrates VAR not Ruining the Championship

Hypocrisy Warning: I am going to complain about the media focusing on the Birmingham manager and then I'm going to focus on him.  Such is life.

Live on Sky Super League Six Sports, for the 12:30 kick-off of Wayne Rooney’s Birmingham City travelling to Southampton. You can imagine it now as Sky Sports cream off over the return of one of the main players on whom they have built their empire. “Wayne Rooney’s Birmingham” will it go in the lexicon along with “Frank Lampard’s Derby” and “Steven Gerrard Aston Villa”.  That after all, is what Sky Sports is all about, individuals and if the individuals play for one of the Super League Six then so much the better.  It’s been a long time since Rooney was at United and it’s been even longer since he was any good as a player, prematurely turning into that inevitable fat lad that he was always going to become. He had a retirement lap of honour at Everton before disappearing off to America, first as a player and then as an unsuccessful manager. In between times he was manager of Derby County and got sold an absolute turd of a job and he did reasonably well, bearing in mind the rug was pulled from under him somewhat with points deductions and all that stuff which saw an inevitable descent into League 1 for the Rams.

Usually when a manager gets a new job mid season, it’s because the team is near the bottom of the league and the previous manager has been shit. Birmingham were sixth when the USA-based owners of the Blues, backed by the PR stunt that is Tom Brady’s involvement, decided to get rid of manager John Eustace after two consecutive comfortable wins.  It’s always been well known that there is occasionally ‘new manager bounce’ for an underperforming team when they get a new boss. Rooney has so far, with two losses in a row, gone someway to proving that bringing a new manager into a relatively successful team, will fuck things up and you won’t so much get a new manager bounce, as a new manager splat.

You would think that American owners coming into a Championship club would be very interested in getting promoted into the big money and so replacing a manager who was doing well and had a team in the playoff positions, could be seen as slightly strange from a football point of view.  However, It doesn’t take a genius to work out why the owners have done it, what with Rooney’s profile of being a former Premier League Sky Sports legend and it certainly suits them that he has connections with a good ol’ US of A and is well known there.

According to my fag packet maths, there has been approximately 62 hours since the final whistle at Preston and the kick-off of this game. Approximately 21 of those hours would’ve been spent asleep so 41 hours to get everything sorted for this game. When you look at it like that, it becomes obvious why they’re absolutely had to be rotation in these three games.  I was expecting a swathe of returning players for this game including THB, Manning, Stuart Armstrong, Sulemana and Charly Alcaraz and most of that happened, the one exception being that James Bree kept his place at left back, with Manning only making it back as far as the bench.

Birmingham’s line-up included Lukas Jutkiewicz, a Southampton born player who was linked with us repeatedly when we were in the Championship last time around, mainly because Nicola Cortese had banned the Daily Echo at the time so they were making stuff up and the Southampton link was too good an opportunity to miss.

Birmingham right back Cody Drameh is one who we were linked with at the start of the season before KWP decided to slum it in the Championship and Drameh is up against Sulemana today and their first battle ends in a corner after four minutes. Stuart Armstrong takes it short to brother Adam and gets it back before switching again to Adam.  Whilst we’re all expecting a right foot cross he sells Drameh a dummy and swings over a left footed cross and it’s one of those ones where you know it’s a goal before it happens.  There is no way THB is going to miss and bang, he doesn’t and it’s 1-0 as he powers a header past John Ruddy and into the net.  Come on!!!

Play That Fuckin' Goal Music!

If Rooney was looking for a response, he didn’t get it and Sulemana and Stuart Armstrong combine on the left, with Armstrong playing it inside the hapless Drameh and Sulemana burns past before making his way along the goal line and rolling it across to Alcaraz at the back post who cannot miss from literally two yards.  2-0 and this is a piece of piss so far.

Rooney had made a comment in the week that he wanted his team to play football but the Birmingham centre backs Sanderson and Aiwo have absolutely no interest in doing so and they have no ability to do it either. Consequently, Birmingham are just leathering the ball forward and we then win it and keep it for a few minutes before they pick it up and leather it forward again.

We get to 44 minutes with absolutely no problem whatsoever and everybody is working incredibly hard. Adam Armstrong steams back into his own half dispossess Dembélé but unfortunately then plays a shit ball to give it away again.  Birmingham launch it forward from halfway as they do, towards Burke and Bazunu has what can only be described as a brain fart and comes steaming out of his goal when there is absolutely no need and as Burke flicks it on, Bazunu clatters into the back of him. Fuck me that’s a clear penalty.  Oh, hang on he’s pointing past the penalty spot for a goal-kick…. what the fuck? I cannot believe we have got away with that… absolutely ridiculous. That’s up there with the Bednarek rugby tackle at Stoke.

Normal service is then resumed at the other side end of the pitch with Stuart Armstrong taking a pass from Downes and flicking a superb ball through the Birmingham defence for Adam Armstrong to run onto. Coming in from the left with just Ruddy to beat, he knocks it past the keeper but it rolls wide of the far post. Poor finish in truth and it really should’ve been 3-0.

Half-time and this has been relatively simple so far. It’s hard to imagine Birmingham being as bad in the second half but can’t complain at all about being 2-0 up.  It’s been a really good atmosphere in the Chapel End where I am.  No ‘moan when you’re winning’ for a change.

The second half starts in exactly the same vein with Saints on the ball through Smallbone and via Alcaraz, Stuart Armstrong is teed on the edge of the box but the magnificently haired beautiful Scotsman scuffs it through to the keeper who again, should’ve been worked.  And another chance goes begging as KWP puts over a wonderful cross and Adam Armstrong gets in front of the defender to connect with a header but it’s somehow managed to slide off his face and go past the far post again.

It’s surely a matter of time before we score the third goal but then Ruddy launches one 80 yards down the park, Jutkiewicz nods it on ahead of THB and KWP mis-controls allowing Stansfield to run through and finish well past Baz. For fuck‘s sake – talk about undeserved. At the end of the day, any goal is a good goal but not exactly the great football Wayne was talking about.

Unbelievably, Birmingham now look like they can equalise and we are suddenly looking a bit shit and not clearing the ball, giving them encouragement. Stuart Armstrong fucks up when Baz bowls the ball out to him and loses it, allowing Drameh to get to the line and fire a dangerous ball across which could easily found Stansfield again.  Wake up lads for fucks sake.

Another five minutes go by and we seem to settle down a bit again with Downes winning the ball higher the pitch and knocking it off to Alcaraz who skims is in a shot that Ruddy saves well but at least we’re back up the other end.  Charly and Kamaldeen are off to be replaced with Fraser and Aribo - the latter of which has me scratching my head a little bit.  Saints seem to have retained a bit of control then Downes put Fraser away and for a second it looks like he has a chance to chip the goalkeeper and he has a go…. and it’s woeful.

Edozie and Charles come on for Stuart Armstrong and Smallbone so we now have more energy about us and Charles finds Fraser out on the left and he puts a cross in, nodded down by Edozie and Adam Armstrong wraps his foot round it to smash into the net for 3-1. Get in, game over, 100% record intact for Wayne.

The Goals and Assists Just Keep Coming

Birmingham are a beaten team now and give the ball away on halfway to Fraser and not put off by his previous effort, he tries another long-range chip against Ruddy but he’s gone Full Geoff Thomas and no one wants to go Full Geoff Thomas and it goes closer to the corner flag. Keep trying Wee Man.

And there we have it, another three points, four wins out of the last five and another very good performance. Yes there was a little five minute spell after Birmingham scored when it could’ve been a bit sketchy but other than that it was domination pretty much from start to finish. If I may talk about Mr Rooney’s team for a moment, I thought they were absolutely shit for a vast majority of the game.  Rooney came in with bold words about making them a passing team but they weren’t interested and for all the talk of passing football they scored a goal by smashing the ball up the pitch taking advantage of a dip in concentration. 3-1 flattered Birmingham I thought.

Like with the Preston manager Ryan Lowe on Wednesday, all Wayne could come up with was to blame the referee for a non-penalty.  I actually have a bit more sympathy for Rooney than I had for Ryan Lowe at Preston because Baz has completely wiped out Burke and I don’t really know why that hasn’t been given. Would it have made a difference to the game? I very much doubt it and it always felt like a game that we would always have won comfortably.

A Manager Whose Team Just Smash it Up the Park, with Russell Martin

Aside from the blip where we let the goal in, where I think both THB and KWP could’ve done better, Saints were largely excellent with good performances all over the team. I’ll tell you though, if we had a good striker it would transform this team. Adam Armstrong played as the number nine today and you can’t knock a goal and an assist from 90 minutes work.  On the downside, so much of our play going forward broke down on him however until we start making the ball stick up-front we are always going to be a team that struggles to create enough chances and score the goals that our amount of possession demands. What I mean by that is that we had the same number of on-target shots as Birmingham and we had the ball 75% of the time.  So, we should’ve won far more comfortably today and again, it’s another game where I’m thinking about what Ross Stewart is going to add to this team when he gets fit.

Elsewhere, Baz didn’t have much to do and only had one flaky moments where he came out of the edge of his box in the first half and clattered a Birmingham striker when he didn’t really need to be there as there was a covering defender. THB and Bednarek were very solid in central defence.  The standout performer in the back for for me was James Bree who was pretty faultless, not getting beaten at all down his wing and using the ball sensibly and effectively and keeping things very simple. He is also much better in the air than the average fullback so when Birmingham were trying to launch bombs down his wing, it wasn’t really a danger. It’s also a good bit of management to leave Bree in the team because Ryan Manning is seen by many as being almost like a teachers pet for Russell Martin, but Bree has got his chance through suspension and has taken that chance and played well so it’s really good from that point of view to leave him in because it tells any player that thought their place in the side was guaranteed, that maybe it isn’t.  It also tells fringe players that if you make the most of your chance, you may well stay on the team – something that a player like Sekou Mara should bear in mind.

Stuart Armstrong was superb in midfield, showing exactly what was missing in the Preston game until he came on as a substitute and then there was Flynn Downes who has hit a superb little vein of form over the last four or five games. Absolutely everywhere to make sure that Birmingham never got a foothold, winning the ball back multiple times and then not giving it away.

Sulemana and Alcaraz combined brilliantly for the second goal and it was interesting seeing Alcaraz play a wider role today which I think is exactly where he played for Racing club in Argentina. I guess he was picking up tips on how to play that position from Lionel Messi on the recent Argentina camp.  I expect to see sixty goals from him before the end of the season.

Another pleasing day and it was nice to back up the two previous good results with a third one. In fact, that’s 14 points out of 18 since our four-game slump. Things are still building and though we are in a decent place, we are not perfect but as I said, a clinical ruthless striker transforms this team.

Bring on another test of character at Millwall next week.  Up the Fucking Saints.