McLeish hangs on for victories amid glut of big-margin wins
This article was originally published on sportingintelligence.com here last week. I received an e-mail from Nick Harris who is the editor, asking if I would like to re-publish it. So here it is:
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By Brian Sears
26 February 2010
Never before in Premier League history have there been so many “big cushion” wins, and by that I mean wins by three clear goals or more. Already this season there have been 50 of them altogether among 196 wins by all teams combined. In the whole of last season there were 53. The percentage of “BC” wins is running at a whopping 25.5 per cent, which is much higher than in any previous season, as today’s top table (Margins of Victory) shows.
As recently as last weekend, Blackburn (by beating Bolton 3-0) and West Ham (by beating Hull 3-0) joined the other 12 clubs who have already had at least one BC win this season. Manchester United have had 10 BC wins, the greedy tinkers, while Arsenal have had nine, Chelsea eight and Tottenham five. A full list of the BC winners and losers (Hull most often take a three-goal spanking or worse) is below the top table.
And then there are six sides yet to inflict a BC win: Birmingham, Bolton, Burnley, Hull, Wigan and Wolves.
And among that goal-shy sextet, unquestionably the most remarkable story, in terms of finding a way to win by doing so as tightly as possible, is Birmingham’s.
Alex McLeish must be suffering from vertigo, riding this high in the table. His team have 37 points from 26 games before this weekend’s fixtures, putting them considerably closer to the Champions League places (a mere nine points upwards) than to the relegation zone (a huge 14 points below).
And yet does his side secure wins the easy way? Do they Eck? Do they ‘eck.
Birmingham have won 10 Premier League matches this season, and I’ll give you half an hour to guess how many of those 10 wins have been by a single goal. Go on, have a really good think . . . .
Done? Well done, that’s right. All 10. Once his side go ahead, McLeish and his men spend large periods hanging on by their fingertips. But hang on they have. [Saturday evening update, 27 Feb: they did it again! All 11 wins by one goal].
This season’s winners by three or more goals
10 times: Man Utd
9 times: Arsenal
8 times: Chelsea
5 times: Tottenham
3 times: Aston Villa, Fulham, Liverpool
Twice: Man City, Sunderland
Once: Blackburn, Everton, Portsmouth, Stoke, West Ham
Yet to win by three: Birmingham, Bolton, Burnley, Hull, Wigan, Wolves
This season’s losers by three or more goals
7 times: Hull
6 times: Blackburn, Burnley, Wigan
5 times: Wolves
4 times: Portsmouth
3 times: Bolton
Twice: Everton, Tottenham, West Ham
Once: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Birmingham, Man City, Man Utd, Stoke, Sunderland
Yet to suffer such a defeat: Chelsea, Fulham, Liverpool.
.
United still ahead on decisive first goal
Until last weekend, when they lost at Everton having scored first, Manchester United had won all 17 the matches in which they’d scored first. A massive 76 per cent of Premier League points overall go to the teams that score the first goal. United’s figure is still 94 per cent despite last week’s hiccup, and the second-best team in this regard is United’s “noisy neighbour”, City, whose figure is 90 per cent. In fact City are the only team of 20 not to have lost a single game this season after scoring first; they’ve won 11 of 13 when that happened and drawn the other two.
Birmingham City vs Wigan – Brief post match thoughts
I’ve delayed writing this until today because I wanted a chance to see the replay of the penalty incident first on Match of the Day.
Let’s be honest about it, it was a dive. Not as bad as the David N’gog one for Liverpool but it was never a penalty. If it had been given against us we would have been fuming. Bearing in mind the N’gog incident this is a case of things balancing out over the course of a season so we are even now. The resulting spot kick was well taken by McFadden which I hope will help his confidence.
Apart from that it was a largely forgettable game with the only other noteable incident being the linesman being attacked by the corner flag. How that corner flag was able to stay on the pitch afterwards I’ll never know.
Let’s hope the team can raise themselves for next weeks cup game against a Portsmouth team who have nothing else to play for.
Birmingham City v Wigan Preview
Tomorrow sees us face Wigan at St Andrews in the Premier League. I am going to be at this one as it also the latest fans forum at the club – more on that next week!
After a couple of disappointing results in the league, we will be looking to win and secure the 40 point mark – just to MAKE SURE that we are safe! 
After the fantastic run came to an end at Chelsea, we have struggled a bit. It is interesting that the squad has had a few changes too because of injuries. According to the news I have at the moment, we are back to full strength. It looks like Barry Ferguson is available again, of course he may not go straight into the side.
The other player who has missed a couple of games is Chucho. I didn’t see last Sunday’s game, but I gather that McFadden did pretty well up front with Jerome. Despite this, I think I would bring Chucho back in. This is the sort of game that he could get his first St Andrews goal. I get the impression, that he could go on a scoring run then.
As far as Wigan, they are going through a difficult time at the moment. They have only won one Premier League game since the end of November, a 2-0 away victory at Wolves. During that time was our 3-2 victory at their place, a mauling by Manchester United and they have failed to beat a number of clubs who are in the relegation fight.
Titus Bramble and James McCarthy are likely to miss the game due to injuries, but as far as I can tell, they don’t have any other problems with players.
With the greatest respect to Wigan, this is the sort of game we should be winning as we look to cement ourselves as a mid-table Premier League side. I hope that Alex McLeish gets us to go on the offensive and look to get the crowd going with an early goal.
It would be nice to see us win comfortably, however I would take a 1-0!
As long as we return to our the defensive organisation that we were getting credit for during the unbeaten run, we should win.
I’m going for a 2-0 to Blues as a confidence boost before we face Portsmouth twice in a week in the cup and the league.
A Bridge Too Far?
After yesterdays announcement by Wayne Bridge, there has been a lot of press discussion about the situation. I thought I would blog my opinion on it.
Now this IS an emotive subject, and I am aware that people reading this may have experienced similar situations – so I hope that I can deal with this sensitively.
Ok, let’s say you discover that your work mate does what John Terry did with the lady of your life? What would you do?
I suspect there would be a variety of responses from violence to walking away from the people in question. To get a perspective on this, I think it is important to understand the feelings that you may go through. We all know that we were are emotionally involved with people, and that is challenged, it can affect all aspects in your life.
If it happened to you at work, could you continue to work with them?
It happened at a place I worked at and it was awful, the atmosphere was really affected. In the end all three people had to leave.
Ok having used that as a reference, a few comments on the situation in hand.
Some people are accusing Wayne Bridge of letting his country down leading up to the world cup – but sorry I don’t agree with that. (See opening paragraphs!) I actually think Bridge didn’t have any choice at all. He would have been living with Terry for several weeks in a close environment and I can’t believe, (having served in the forces), that words wouldn’t have been said and that would have upset the team spirit.
Wayne’s decision IMO is his attempt to try and bring some stability to the side, however it isn’t going to happen while Terry is still there. Let’s remember it is Terry’s actions that have caused this, not Wayne Bridge’s actions.
Terry should have stepped down, I don’t care if he is a quality defender or not – there are consequences to actions, something that footballers often want to avoid or think they are above.
So Wayne has my support for his decision, and I actually think that he has handled himself with dignity through this. Unfortunately I doubt this is the last of things, I am certain there are members of the England squad who won’t appreciate Terry still being in the squad, especially if they consider that it could of been their wife or girlfriend he had been with.
I know people will agree with me and there will be people who disagree with me, but this is my opinion of the situation as it stands right now.
Kev
A Shameless Plug for Our Hosts
As many of you will remember, back in the Autumn the hosts we were with at the time got hacked – several times! The result was 2 months worth of lost content for both the blog and the forum.
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