Birmingham City 3-2 Wigan Athletic – Post Match Reaction
Posted on October 29, 2007
Filed Under Matches
Want to read a report of the game? You can do so here thanks to Jake.
Phew!
At no point during this piece did I want to use the term “Blues never do it the easy was, do they?” but would it be so inappropriate on this occasion? We did our best to throw it away but despite that, the self-belief and “sheer bloodymindedness” that Steve Bruce has somehow injected into this team came shining through and brought us three points at a very crucial time.
As usual, a mish-mash of mixed up musings on the match:
- Official Blues
- Official Wigan
- The Independent
- Daily Mail – Nice touch with the final paragraph
- CockneyLatic
- Wigan Rivals – Check the stats, bizarre how anyone could argue for Wigan deserving anything from the game?
- Blues Rivals
- Setanta Sports – Player ratings
The reactions of the managers:
The “One Steve Bruce” chants were interesting, weren’t they? When I heard it on the radio – and of course, Tom Ross made a big deal of it – my initial reaction was to cringe. It’s not that Steve Bruce doesn’t deserve credit and it’s not that Steve Bruce doesn’t deserve to carry on the job that he’s doing but one thing bugged me about it.
How many people who were there, waving, chanting and singing away would’ve been booing him and singing “Bruce Out!” had we not scored a late winner? Or worse still, conceded a late goal. It sort of screams of fickleness and I wish I could’ve been there to see just how many were singing it. It sounded pretty loud on the old wireless. How many who were singing would’ve rang up WM or 1152 or been hammering away at their keyboards about 4-4-2 and how we need to change and how Bruce doesn’t know what he’s doing etc, had we not gone on to win? One result doesn’t make that much difference to the overall performance analysis of a manager, surely?
Back to the game, it’s just a relief to get it out of the way. Most people I know were confident of a victory – even Kev, the J & S forum admin who is the most pessimistic person I know when it comes to Blues predicted a 2-0 win for us! – and so it turned out although have you noticed… Blues never do it the easy was, do they?
The character, bottle and determination on show was superb and this season is definitely beginning to get back to what it used to be like when we first arrived in the Premiership. The crowd once again seem louder, the team seem more up for it and Bruce is right when he talks of being back to what Birmingham City are all about. I like that he wants to be back to where we were in terms of progress and attitude of that magical first couple of seasons in the Prem.
He’s been here a while now and I think he understands what Blues fans demand of the team and the club as a whole. What’s particularly pleasing is that whilst the team have still got that endeavour and want to do well, there’s also a touch of class. The De Ridder’s and the Kapo’s bring a touch of skill to the proceedings and it’s like this is what Bruce was trying to originally do when he brought in the Dunn’s, the Izzet’s and the Gronkjaer’s a few years ago.
Now Bruce has learnt about what character traits and histories to look for in addition to the on pitch abilities. And it’s working. It’s working very well. Survive this season and hopefully allow Carson Yeung to show what he can really do in terms of marketing and this time next year, Rodders, we could be Europeanaires…
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Less of the negative – more of the realist!! ;-p