[Archived] Birmingham Preview

[LeChuck]

EHD seems to have gained a yard of pace somehow, he looks far more useful than he was last season

I noticed that too.

I'm not sure how he's managed that, maybe he was carrying an injury last season?

[John]

Ben Foster says that playing against Blackburn will be the stuff of nightmares for goalkeepers this season - because of their giant players and long-ball tactics.

[JAL]

EHD seems to have gained a yard of pace somehow, he looks far more useful than he was last season

Partly this maybe because its early season, with many players not yet into their full stride, lets see how hes doing after week twelve.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Blackburn fans says that watching Blackburn will be the stuff of nightmares for them this season - because of their giant players and long-ball tactics.

*Slightly edited*

[Hughesy]

Typical reaction on here by the usual suspects...Crap, long ball, dont care etc etc!

As for the game, what iv seen & what iv heard from all the sources - it appears we played pretty well and were unlucky to lose, and probably deserved a win.

At the end of the day the prem is a cruel place - fail to take chances and you get punished....same at the other end, one lack of concentration and its in the net.

At least we played well, at least our fans were in good voice & its also good to hear positive things around Niko & Diouf.

Onwards & upwards - much better than last season

[LeChuck]

Partly this maybe because its early season, with many players not yet into their full stride, lets see how hes doing after week twelve.

Are you suggesting that other players will be able to run faster as the season progresses?!

[BuckyRover]

Partly this maybe because its early season, with many players not yet into their full stride, lets see how hes doing after week twelve.

I think week fourteen is the real litmus test

[JAL]

Are you suggesting that other players will be able to run faster as the season progresses?!

No, just that they'll have that split second of extra of pace and quicker recovery time within a week or so.

Then you'll see if El Hadj can maintain this early season form.

I think week fourteen is the real litmus test

Cheers bucky didnt mean it like that. Meant after this length of time we will be able to see a more accurate picture emerging regarding performance levels.

[malk]

What a bunch of arse from Foster. We killed them for the vast majority of the game and put them under pressure in lots of different ways, not just the long ball (though we relied on it too much at the end when we were trying to salvage something from the game).

Very disappointing result but if we play like that all season we'll be better than fine.

[philipl]

rovers did not play long ball in the first 80 minutes or so but when we were chasing the equaliser we pumped a barrage of long balls forward. At the time I thought this will get the critics going!

It wasn't pretty but it put Brum under constant pressure and nearly yielded the draw. Often teams maintain their shape passing it around and the opposition successfully defend further up the field as a result. At least we were getting into goal scoring positions when chasing the game.

[Mike Graham]

I have not seen this mentioned on the post match thread but I thought that the Rovers fans were fantastic on saturday. A wall of sound for a full 90 minutes, even after the lucky beggars scored two. The Birmingham crowd were silent even when in the lead.

You could see how much the support meant to our players at full time.

Fantastic....keep it up.

[briansol]

Quick summary from me as well:

- Birmingham scored from 2 of 3 chances, and that is if you consider the Gardner's shot a chance. That was the only shot I can remember they had from distance but of course it went in. Maybe Robinson could have done better, but you see them go in all the time.

- The defence looked well in control except for the their first goal.

- EH Diouf did seem a yard quicker, much improved from last year, but still struggling with an end product.

- Kalinic was again very good. I really think we'll struggle to find anybody on our budget to rival his form at the moment. His movement and intelligent link up play makes the formation work. He probably would have scored if Samba didn't push him on the incident which one of them hit the post(still unsure who)

- Gamst despite his miss had another good game. People who still gets hung up in his left winger performances needs to reboot. Good work rate, good in the air and breaks up play by interception. He is also the only one who tries anything creatively in the midfield.

- N'Zonzi was as usual great in the air, great goal and another great flick, but he's not a box-to-box player.

- Jones struggled in posession this time and I wonder if he and N'Zonzi should be playing together.

- We missed the guile of Dunn as we get very one-dimensional attacking.

Based on the 2 first games, I really wonder if the striker position is biggest problem. Kalinic needs backup but currently is the Solution. Since we only play with one striker, it's the midfield that really needs to come up with the goods. We lack guile and goal threat and needs someone in addition to Dunn to provide that.

[only2garners]

But 21000 for t'big club from Englands second city isn't very positive is it?.

The corresponding fixture last year, played on a Tuesday night just before Christmas and live on TV had over 23,000. And this was the first home game of the season for a team that had outperformed expectations last season. It certainly puts our crowds into some perspective.

[Flopsy]

Lot of people have been made redundant in Brum, got to have a knock on effect to Blue's season ticket sales, plus the fans don't appear to be to enamoured with the style of City's play at the moment

[Mattyblue]

Lot of people have been made redundant in Brum, got to have a knock on effect to Blue's season ticket sales, plus the fans don't appear to be to enamoured with the style of City's play at the moment

BCFC have always struggled to attract full houses (exception of maybe 2002/2003 period?), very poor as one of only two clubs in the UK's second largest city.

[ROVERS]

i apologize first for posting something negative, but is it only me that feels that the players are actually feeling rather uncomfortable with the ball? nobody seems interested to even execute any short passes.... (effective short passes)

1) its clumsy play almost by every player......... i feel extremely fustrated watching it.

2) midfielders hold on to balls for too long, and then attempt to hoof it up ( where are the support from other midfielders?) *PS we have 5 midfielders

3) As usual we are slow, and with other teams getting faster and faster each season, we are getting worse each season. (especially at the wings)

4) Diouf played well????? he is deviod of ideas, 1 dimension, can't run, etc... its a long list.......

5) we are totally useless and hopeless in counter attacks.... be honest guys! when a counter attack chance is presented to us, what do we do? we hoof it up to Kalinic. and y is that so? cause we simply cannot outrun anybody or having anybody to excute that attack. and that leads us to the 6th point.

6) What could Kalinic possibly do upfront alone? and to make things worse, our midfielders are normally non-exsistence when he manage to hold up the ball. Kalinic causes major problem to birmingham? he was comfortably marked out by them instead.

7)imagine having midfielders running in, when kalinic holds or break through???

8) in general, our new starting 11.......... how many defensive minded players we have on the field? a protector infront of our 4 man defense??? and then Nzonzi as holding midfielder. Were we actually facing problems with our defense last season to justify having jones as our 4 man defense protector???

A striker is not our only major problem, to be more specific, its our attacking force as a whole being laugable........ its embarassing, cause its not football, the play is not balance and its not positive!

[wilyrover]

BCFC have always struggled to attract full houses (exception of maybe 2002/2003 period?), very poor as one of only two clubs in the UK's second largest city.

WBA is actually nearer to Villa Park than St Andrews. But it's still a million people for 3 clubs.

[the original david brent]

i apologize first for posting something negative, but is it only me that feels that the players are actually feeling rather uncomfortable with the ball? nobody seems interested to even execute any short passes.... (effective short passes)

4) Diouf played well????? he is deviod of ideas, 1 dimension, can't run, etc... its a long list.......

I must have attended a different game on saturday. In my opinion Diouf was our best player. He beat their left back 3 times on the outside, which is something he has rarely done for us. He put some good crosses in and he worked hard in his defensive duties. He looks leaner, fitter and quicker then he has ever done at rovers. I've been a big critic of diouf in the past but i think he deserves some praise for his opening 2 perfomances. I just hope he maintains his form and fitness.

On a separate note brums attendance was appauling considering they profess to be a big club and are from the 2nd biggest city in the uk. However i was also dissapointed in the size of our following, and thought there would be a few more there considering it was the first away game and we beat everton.

[only2garners]

WBA is actually nearer to Villa Park than St Andrews. But it's still a million people for 3 clubs.

If you're going to count West Brom you had better add another 300K as it's in Sandwell and not Birmingham.

[Ricky]

I'll echo the view about Diouf having a decent game. I thought he played well and looked much sharper than last season. He impressed me at the Everton game as well, maybe we will see good things from him this season.

[Dinpomp]

*Kalinic

Yes, I saw it, but it was ONE penalty during a season where Kalinic was hardly bursting with confidence. He was tucking them away back home, and I would have given him another chance on Saturday.

Kalinic is a very good penalty taker (at least he has been in the past).

[Blue blood]

i apologize first for posting something negative, but is it only me that feels that the players are actually feeling rather uncomfortable with the ball? nobody seems interested to even execute any short passes.... (effective short passes)

3) As usual we are slow, and with other teams getting faster and faster each season, we are getting worse each season. (especially at the wings)

7)imagine having midfielders running in, when kalinic holds or break through???

A striker is not our only major problem, to be more specific, its our attacking force as a whole being laugable........ its embarassing, cause its not football, the play is not balance and its not positive!

Think most fans would agree that the thing this team really lacks is pace and either that, or a creative midfielder who can play the killer pass, would enable us to break a lot quicker and support Kalinic to a greater extent. But being one player away from our first team being very competitive is not a bad position to be in. Sure we do need that if we're to play the system we're playing but it looks like Sam is after a player who can play in the hole, and especially if we get the money from the takeover, this can be addressed.

But to say our forward play is laughable - I'm not sure where you are coming from. We had numerous chances to put Brum away, Foster made several excellent saves, and there were two or three chances which we were inches away from scoring.

As for Brum they arguably were lucky to take advantage of the two bad pieces of defending that they did. Their offensive play created 3 chances, our created significantly more. I'm not sure how that means our forward play is laughable. It was a similar story vs everton - we had more of the chances.

No one is saying rovers have it fully correct, and like most teams we are slightly unbalanced - in our case we're stronger in defence then attack - but saying we're a laughable attacking force is OTT. Peds and Diouf have picked up and performed a lot better, we are creating chances, and both games on the chances created we should have won. I agree we need an attacking midfielder, and doing so would massively improve our game, but I'm sure there are a number of premiership clubs which would trade teams, performances and starts with us.

[joey_big_nose]

Think most fans would agree that the thing this team really lacks is pace and either that, or a creative midfielder who can play the killer pass, would enable us to break a lot quicker and support Kalinic to a greater extent. But being one player away from our first team being very competitive is not a bad position to be in. Sure we do need that if we're to play the system we're playing but it looks like Sam is after a player who can play in the hole, and especially if we get the money from the takeover, this can be addressed.

Not sure I agree with this. Olsson is one of the fastest players I have seen in the Blue and White, and Diouf has found a bit more speed. Hoilett is quick too but his allround game seems a bit weak.

Key for me is to find someone who can sit deeper and pick a pass. That will make a massive difference. Or alternatively bring Pedersen deeper and slot in Popov or Dunn behind the striker. That could make us a lot more fluid. We need to get more out of Olsson too - he is a goal threat and has an eye for goal, but he too rarely gets right up supporting Kalinic and behind the opposition defence.

I agree with you that I am bemused that people think we played badly on Sat, we completely dominated. What let us down was soft defending and poor finishing.

[thenodrog]

Lot of people have been made redundant in Brum,

Lot of people have never worked in Blackburn.

[Hughesy]

Lot of people have never worked in Blackburn.

So true....and alot of them that do are smack heads or drunks.