What’s wrong with Blues?

Article by e-Birmingham City's Matt Jewsbury

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With just 2 wins in the league last season, Bluenoses were subject to some abysmal football down at St’ Andrews; in fact the worst in Europe. The football that was witnessed left most fans deflated and the lack of inspiration from the team meant a lack of atmosphere. The penultimate home game against Blackburn comes straight to mind where fans were subject to a torturous 4-2 defeat; after going 4-0 down in the first half. Choruses’ of “You don’t know what you’re doing” came from some sets of supporters and even some “Clark Out” chants were heard. I for one wasn’t one of those fans - but I can totally understand why some fans came to blows. I had always backed Clark up until that particular game, but his team selection was inexcusable with many players out of position and such an inexperienced back four. In such a vital game, we were set up to lose and when you are set up to lose, it is pretty difficult to WIN! Clark then changed it around at 3-0, if I remember correctly but it was utterly too late by then.

Now, back to the question in hand; What is wrong with Birmingham City at home? Before I do start trying to explain, I would just like to say that this is totally my opinion and so of course what I say may not be correct.....

1. Lack of investment

We have owners who do not care about this football club and who are skint, so they are not going to invest. I have always admired Clark for that reason, we simply did not have the quality in many different positions last season, we were left to ‘‘scrape the barrel’ in the loan and free market. The free agents who were often on short-term contracts were not of sufficient ability and dare I say did not care as much, same applies to the loanees who were often inexperienced and out of their depth, with the exception of a few; Macheda, Huws are the first to mind.

2. Dan Burn & Kyle Bartley being recalled

I believe that this has already been touched on by Dave Watson in an interview with The Mail. He is right, we had a very solid team with a defence who were consistently chosen. In Burn & Bartley we had high calibre centre backs and after their recall it shook the team massively, a lot of positions had to be replaced, with no money to invest in players, again, short-term freebies and short-term loanees were shipped in to try and plug the holes in a sinking ship.

3. Injuries & Suspensions

Many people say that injuries should not be blamed for a team's poor performance but when your team is as threadbare as Birmingham’s, I think it is fair to say that one injury can disrupt the teams shape and performance, Robbo being the perfect example… when he was suspended in the final few games the defence crumbled without his experience and leadership.

4. A natural left midfielder

This reason may seem a little weird to some fans but I think it had a massive affect on the tactics last season and I also believe it was one reason why Burke has had such a poor season. Clark often opted with a 4-2-3-1 formation, with Burke out on the right and Novak on the left, now, Novak is a natural striker and I think that Novak did as good a job he could out on the left. But as with many players in unnatural positions they often drift inside, leaving no width out on the left and leaving them without the ability of taking on a player effectively because they aren’t used to doing it so much. With there being no width out on the left often the only option for the Blues team was to give the ball to Burke and with the ball going to Burke so often and there being a left winger who is easy to deal with it allows the opposition to nullify the threat of Burke by focusing on him and often doubling up. Leaving Burke with two people to get past.

5. Team selection

I have been massively reluctant to add this reason because I believe it to be a little unfair on Clark, the fact remains that he also chose the team for away games where we had a fantastic record. But too often than not, his team selection was always arguable - some fans say “You don’t see the players at training” but myself, and many other fans were often asking ourselves “What was he thinking there” when the team selection was published.

6. Atmosphere

The atmosphere inside St’ Andrews was often dull and not very inspiring for the team, which I totally understand - if there is no excitement how can the fans be excited? But I do believe that this did not help the team, making them more nervous. Albeit, I won’t forget the great atmosphere at the Stoke, Swansea, Wigan games.

There may be many other different reasons, reasons that I may not have covered. But as a club we need to put them behind us next season. With potential new owners coming in we can hopefully invest and start recovering from the parasite we have consistently been dragged down by for the past three years.

Keep right on fellow Bluenoses!

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