I am going to come out and say it straight up front; I didn’t go to this game and I’m therefore in no position to comment in detail about the match other than what we all by now already know that Blues got the decisive goal 15 minutes from time from a corner with a free header from O’Connor at the near post. It is comforting that other teams defend abysmally occasionally and from what I saw over the weekend on MoTD and on SKY, Hull are not the only ones. It appears that Blues could and should have won this game a lot more comfortably than we did and were thwarted in the main by the outstanding efforts of Myhill in the Hull goal. Rather than bask in the questionable glory of three points welcome though they are I thought I would make one or two observations about the weekend’s action in general.

There was an interesting article in the Mirror today from Stan Collymore and it was about the issue of playing 4-5-1 even at home. Clearly, we are one of the teams that this applies to. He makes the point that Wigan and Portsmouth both employed this system and both got comfortably beaten. He says that fans are getting fed up with the system and it is killing the game up and down the leagues. However, as we have all noted so far this season it can be very effective and Blues have used this system well in their campaign so far. With a little more fortune they could arguably have snatched a draw at Old Trafford and should definitely have taken a point at White Hart Lane and in our last home game against Villa. As I rather suspected Blues have a decent chance of taking points from those who will find them hard to come by such as ourselves as the attacking resources of the lesser teams will not be as potent. This proved to be the case on Saturday against the Tigers. 4-5-1 can be very dull but if used properly in a well organised way will undoubtedly achieve the objective of gaining much needed points towards survival and let’s face it, most of us want to survive in the league in the hope of improving the prettiness of the football year on year as better players come in confident in the knowledge that it is unlikely they will find themselves in a deep relegation scrap. Whether we like it or not football is all about results and managers and their staff lose their jobs if the team under their charge fails to deliver. Stan Collymore says rightly that it is one thing putting five across the middle if your lone striker is someone like Torres or Drogba and you have the likes of Stevie Gerrard, Mascherano, Essien, Ballack or Frank Lampard playing in the quintet behind them. However, if you are Birmingham City, Nottingham Forest, Grimsby Town or Grays Athletic such luxuries do not exist and it is harder therefore to make what can be a remarkably fluid system work in an attacking sense rather than having five willing rottweilers in midfield. (The teams mentioned are taken purely randomly by the way so no cries of derision please – no offence is meant!)

We weren’t quite the last match featured by the MoTD mob on Saturday night but one gets the distinct impression that they don’t find the games we’re involved in inspiring. Well Gary, Mark and Alan; get used to it! I cannot see Big Eck changing the formula any time soon especially with the injury list and almost total lack of attacking options other than Chucho and O’Connor at the moment. Frankly, I don’t care what these pundits think of us and whether they continue to write us off. It is of note is it not that all three promoted clubs notched wins over the weekend? I have a feeling that Blues will steal points away from home this season as well as picking up points from hard fought grinding at home using the dull but efficient 4-5-1 system. It is for this reason that I think we’ll be alright this year.

The major talking points yesterday were the amount of time added on in the Manchester derby and the denial of a clear penalty for Spurs in the battle of the London giants. At first, my reaction was that Manchester City had been seriously hard done by and four minutes had stretched to nearly six no doubt aided and abetted by Sir Alex Ferguson who always moans about the timings one way or another. However, Adrian Chiles on MoTD 2 said that BBC had timed the celebration of Bellamy’s equaliser and added the time taken for a substitution in time added on. This came to almost an extra 90 seconds which was about the time (within a single second) that Michael Owen scored. So tough luck City and Mark Hughes, it looks as if the Reds didn’t just have the usual officialdom in their favour at the expense of the rest of us on this occasion. As for the penalty decision at 1 – 0 in the Chelsea – Spurs game; Robbie Keane was definitely tripped and who knows what would have happened had the correct decision been awarded and Spurs had equalised?

There is an advertisement on the telly at the present which involves Terry Venables; in it he says “they say that it all evens out over the course of a season but it doesn’t, it truly doesn’t.” I agree with him; the top teams always seem to get the crucial calls and that is one of the reasons they are top teams. I’ll settle for Birmingham being better than at least three others in the Premier League; the football can wait.

KRO SOTV