Whatever happened to the heroes of 2002
Filed under: Aylesburyblue Articles, Blues News, Matches, Memories
This weekend brings the playoff finals and while we are all happy not to be taking part in them it did get me wondering about the players who secured Blues’ first Premiership campaign back in 2002.
Nico Vaesen
Vaesen remained Blues’ number one for the following Premier league season until a cruciate knee injury in March 2003 put him out of the game for nine months. With Blues signing Maik Taylor in the summer he struggled to retain his place appearing only a couple of times. In one of those appearances in 2005 he was sent off in a 4-1 defeat by Manchester City. He was released after relegation and now plays for FC Verbroedering Geel in the Belgium 3rd division.
Jeff Kenna
Kenna went on to be a popular player throughout our first couple of seasons before joining Derby County on a free transfer in 2004. He finished his career as player manager with Galway United and is now the manager of Keith Fahey’s old club St Patricks Athletic.
Steve Vickers
Birmingham turned out to be Vickers’ last club as he retired due to injury the following season. He went into property management and does some coaching at non-league level.
Michael Johnson
Johnson was another player who played only one Premier League season for Blues before dropping back down a division. He played for Derby until 2008 and now plays for Notts County alongside another ex-Birmingham Player Jamie Clapham.
Martin Grainger
Sadly injury stopped him from having much of a Premier League career although he did score an excellent free kick against Man Utd. He retired in early 2005 and now works as a chauffeur after a very short spell as the manager of Cheshunt FC.
Paul Devlin
Devlin scored the first ever Premier league goal at St Andrews in a 2-1 defeat of Leeds. He went on to score a couple more goals for us and get ten caps for Scotland before joining Watford. He now plays for Stratford Town in the midland football alliance.
Bryan Hughes
A favourite of many a Bluesnose Hughes’ goals were a major factor in Blues staying up the following season. His attacking runs from midfield made him a useful member of the squad but he decided to move to Charlton in 2004 to get more first team opportunities. He won another play off final for Hull City in 2008 who he still plays for today.
Olivier Tebily
Tebs became a bit of a cult hero at Blues despite not making that many first team appearances in his six years at the club. He finally left in 2008 joining Toronto FC for a short spell. He has now retired back to France with his family.
Tommy Mooney
Mooney only played one game in the top flight before being sent out on loan and then moving to Swindon Town at the end of the season. He went on to play for Oxford, Wycombe and Walsall. Most recently he has been playing in the Spanish 2nd division with UD Marbella.
Geoff Horsfield
The Horse was another St Andrews hero who played a part in our succesful fight to stay up in 2003. He joined Wigan in September 2003 and also played again in the Premier League with West Brom. He had to retire after being diagnosed with testicular cancer but after fighting that off he joined Lincoln City for a few games in 2009.
Stern John
He will always be remembered as the player who scored the last minute winner against Millwall in the semi final. He scored a further nine goals for Blues in the Premier league before joining Coventry. He is currently a Southampton player although he spent the second half of the season on loan at Bristol City.
Subs
Stan Lazaridis
Stanley was another Blues legend who became a regular fixture down the left in the following seasons. He left after relegation in 2006 to join Perth Glory in his native Australia but his time their was curtailed by a twelve month drug ban. He retired in 2008.
Andrew Johnson
Johnson left Blues the following season as part of the deal the brought Clinton Morrisson from Crystal Palace. This proved to be a bit of bad business as he went on to score 74 goals for Palace before moving to Everton for £8.5m. He now plays for Fulham.
Darren Carter
The Birmingham trainee turned out to be the hero as he put away the winning penalty. Unfortunately his career never took off the way we had hoped and he was eventually sold to West Brom in 2005. He now plays for Preston North End.
Unused sub
Damien Johnson
The only member of the team still at the club.
Where The Title Was Lost
An end of season article from Bazza.
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I enjoyed Nat’s article looking at where promotion was won and am broadly in agreement. At the start of the season I stated that only the title would do if we were to claim a truly successful season. It was disappointing to miss out to Sunderland on the last day two years ago (Preston again damn them) and it was just as much a dampener to allow Wolves to win the top prize in the end at a canter.
Now don’t get me wrong here, I am of course thrilled to be back in the Premier League after the heartbreak of last season but the fact is that our squad with all of its alleged quality at this level underperformed for large chunks of the season.
Three teams beat Blues home and away which is two more than two years ago. The teams were Blackpool, Coventry and Preston. These six fixtures represent 18 points and if you add to that our failure to beat relegated Norwich on either occasion you can add another four.
Finally, I would add the contributions made by two of the worst officials I have ever witnessed namely Lee Mason at Sheffield United and Michael Oliver at St Andrews against Plymouth. These two referees and their inept assistants cost us a further five points. There were a number of missed opportunities of course such as the games at Crystal Palace and Charlton for instance but these can be placed one side.
Considering the final total discussed above, the point count comes to a staggering 27!
Let’s be hard on ourselves and say that it is not unreasonable to expect that Blues should have gleaned at least one third of these points? That would be nine which would have delivered the title by a clear two points over Wolves.
Other teams will of course argue that they should have had more here and there also but I’m concentrating on totally avoidable slip ups in this article. Our performances against Blackpool and Coventry were nothing short of abysmal and there can be no excuse for losing to these mediocre outfits once let alone twice in a season. The Preston results were a little more unfortunate as I felt we had been the better side at Deepdale only to get mugged and the two goals they scored at St Andrews wouldn’t appear in the same match under normal circumstances and probably cannot be catered for.
Against Norwich and Plymouth it was a case of missed chances, and bad refereeing in the case of the Plymouth game. It is therefore remarkable that despite our profligacy we have still managed to secure automatic promotion and we have to be grateful that due to Reading’s form completely deserting them that we were not punished.
Next season, whomever we buy, however we strengthen, there is one inescapable truth; Blues will have to beat the teams they should beat and it will quickly become apparent who those teams are. Last time we should have beaten Derby, Reading and Fulham at home. These lapses costing two points a piece are what relegated us. Alex McCleish and David Gold say that we have learned the lessons from before; let us all hope so!
KRO SOTV
Blues v Coventry Match Review
Bazza who normally writes our match reviews under his View from the South articles, is unable to write for us this week. (He didn’t go to the game 
). As a result I thought I would make a few comments on some of the reviews available on the Web.
Blues hit by Dann buster as Wolves enjoy their rest day said the Independant. McLeish is quoted as saying “The start cost us the game,” he said after the 1-0 defeat. “We didn’t deal with a long ball and they forced a corner. We didn’t learn our lesson because they scored from the set-piece. It was fairly soft.” He also refused to blame the officials for the on off on off goal!
Coventry City 1, Birmingham City 0 – Andy Walker’s Sunday Mercury verdict in the Sunday Mercury said DISAPPOINTING Blues’ morale hit a new low down at the Ricoh yesterday. In the article Chris Coleman was clearly a delighted man. He is quoted saying
“We deserved it, we created a lot of good chances and we could have maybe won it by more,” added Coleman. “Birmingham had their moments but overall we deserved the three points and I was delighted.
“We weathered it, we stayed strong and over the whole 90 minutes we created the better chances. There was a lot of enthusiasm in the performance and, to a man, I thought we were magnificent.”
Grim reading continued with Fancy Scott Dann downs Birmingham on the Timesonline site. The opening paragraph in the article says :
ANOTHER week, another stumble at the top of the Championship.
Yesterday’s fall guys, in every sense, were Birmingham City, who having given away an awful early goal, didn’t have the wit, invention or luck to carve out an equaliser. Over to Wolves, who can stretch their lead at the top to six points if they beat Cardiff at Molineux today. (Or maybe not )
There are other reports, but they all seem to say the same thing – we got what we deserved, and even IF they HAD given the disallowed goal, that would have been harsh on a Coventry side who have clearly improved in recent weeks under Coleman. They have a decent chance at making the play-offs if they carry the run on.
What of the Blues? Well it was disappointing us not winning, however Reading were well beaten at home by another rapidly improving side Bristol City. As we now know, Wolves dropped 2 points at home in a game where to quote Wenger from earlier, we as Blues fans wanted both sides to lose.
We were definitely let off the hook. We are still second 4 points behind Wolves with a game in hand and them still to play at home. Yes we are playing poorly, yes we keep throwing away matches, yes fans are beginning to turn against the manager.
HOWEVER despite all of that, Wolves and Reading also seem to want to throw it away, we are still in the right place and we have several key players injured.
Maybe, just maybe – we are meant to go up!!!
Blues v Coventry Preview
Here is Nat’s latest match preview for our forthcoming visit to The Sky Blues.
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Current Form
The Sky Blues have won just one of their last five competitive games, and go into this game on the back of having last-gasp equalisers scored against them by Lancashire’s finest Burnley and Blackburn respectively. They did however, win their most recent local derby against Wolves at the Ricoh (and on that day a last-minute Wolves penalty was saved), so obviously endeared themselves to Bluenoses.
Last time out
The last time we went to the Ricoh on Halloween night 2006, we did so having just emerged from the Autumn of Discontent, where all hope was lost and Steve Bruce had pretty much admitted defeat in the battle to keep his job after that infamous loss to Norwich just fourteen days before this game. As we all know now, Blues went on to win the local derbies against Derby, Albion and the Sky Blues which followed that game, and contrary to the Armageddon many had predicted, Blues ended up eight points clear at the top by Christmas.
To suggest that this game was a relative breeze however would be a complete falsehood however. Soon after kick-off, Blues’ players seemed to freeze in front of the vocal 5,371 away fans behind Maik Taylor’s first-half goalposts. After efforts by Coventry’s Kyle and ex-Bluenose Stern John, it was Blues who took an undeserved first-half lead through loanee Nicklas Bendtner, who somehow managed to guide his far post header underneath Andy Marshall’s after good work by Mat Sadler on the left.
The second-half was just as dicey, with Blues not looking at all cohesive at the back. Leon McKenzie had one header which cannoned off the woodwork with Maik Taylor beaten all ends up. Gangly Kevin Kyle out jumped our defence again soon after but failed to hit the target. At this point it has to be said that Jerome could’ve made things a whole lot easier for us, but he spooned his effort wide after going through on goal.
The game’s most poignant point came in injury time however, when Sky Blues front man Stern John showed his true allegiance by missing the target with the whole goal to aim at from six yards out. The final whistle followed soon after, much to the relief and joy to those who had travelled from the Second City.
Final score: Coventry 0-1 Blues
The season so far
Chris Coleman’s first full season in charge at the Ricoh started very brightly with two league wins against Norwich and Barnsley and progression in the Carling Cup after eliminating Aldershot. A new look squad which had included the signings of top Football League strikers Clinton Morrison and Freddy Eastwood looked an outside bet for a play-off push at least.
However, those who backed the two-tone City to be challenging at the top were soon in for a rude awakening with no wins in the following five games, including having six goals put past them in two home games by Bristol City and Newcastle. After such a promising start, it wasn’t until the end of September that City managed to halt the slide with a 1-0 triumph vs. QPR. The blip had left some wondering whether like in the previous two campaigns the perennially mediocre side were in a scrap to maintain their Championship status, a far cry of pre-season hopes of establishing a top-half finish at least.
From the on however, Coventry’s season petered out with neat football being blighted by incorrigibly inconsistent form. They didn’t look good enough to really threaten the better sides in the division, but didn’t look woeful enough to be scrapping it out with the worst. This sort of stability would probably be something most football fans would be quite apathetic to, however having six managers in five years has probably made it a longed for and cherished commodity.
They have shown signs of being able to compete at the highest echelons of the Championship. One such example of this is when they came to St.Andrews in November and at times comprehensively outplayed us, fully earning their 1-0 win through a Clinton Morrison goal. This appears to show that Coleman is assembling a team which gradually will be looking to drag Coventry back to the top-flight, from where they have been absent for eight years now, when at one time they outlasted the likes of Man United, Chelsea, Tottenham and Villa with their stay.
In recent times they have started to embark on a run in the FA Cup. After overcoming potential banana-skins in non-league Kidderminster Harriers and Torquay (the latter having felled Blackpool in the previous round), they earned a fifth-round draw with Blackburn, where only a Christopher Samba equaliser in the ninety-fourth minute salvaged a replay for Rovers after Coventry, looking to repeat the shock they caused at Ewood Park in the same tournament last year, had replied to Roque Santa Cruz’s opener with goals from Gunnarsson and Michael Doyle. The winner of the resultant replay has a lucrative quarter-final tie with Chelsea to ponder.
The Manager
Chris Coleman is a figure within football who has always commanded instant respect, whether it be as a consummate professional or as a top coach and manager. The Swansea born Left-Back started his career at his hometown club before moving to Crystal Palace in 1991, who a year previously had come within an inch of changing the course of English football by beating Manchester United in the FA Cup final and earning Sir Alex Ferguson the sack. A four year stay in South London followed before moving to Blackburn in 1995, and from there a switch two ambitious third-tier Fulham, bankrolled by Mohammed Al-Fayed and managed by Kevin Keegan.
After a car crash in January 2001, Coleman suffered leg injuries which ultimately ended his playing career despite a comeback attempt. After joining Fulham’s coaching staff in October 2002, he replaced the enigmatic Jean Tigana as manager towards the end of the 02/03 season as caretaker. After managing to keep them up, he beat off competition from the likes of George Burley and Klaus Topmoller to land the post full-time to become the Premiership‘s youngest manager.
His first full season in charge was a huge success, as he guided Fulham to ninth in the Premiership after they were tipped to struggle badly. His first season included a famous 3-1 demolition of Manchester United at Old Trafford. In the intervening years, he performed the oracle time and again by keeping Fulham from relegation despite the fire-sale of players such as Edwin Van De Sar, Steed Malbranque, Luis Boa Morte and Andrew Cole with Fayed now refusing to spend too much of his own fortune. The decision to sack him in March 2007 after a winless run of seven games was met with derision from the wider footballing world, who could see the evidently remarkable job Coleman had done to merely maintain their top-flight status. An ill-fated spell in charge of Real Sociedad was followed by a move to the Midlands after new Coventry chairman and ex-Blues full-back Ray Ranson appointed him to replace Iain Dowie in Winter 2008, less than a year after his departure from Craven Cottage.
As a manager, the likeable Welshman has a reputation of being a good man manager, being able to maintain a semblance of popularity amongst his players whilst running a disciplined club. He also has the shrewdness to maintain and build a squad able to keep up with clubs who quite often have much bigger resource pool than his own, as shown by getting Fulham to punch above their weight during his time in charge there. He is a Manager who belongs in the Premiership, and I get the feeling that next season he will have built a squad at Coventry to attempt entry to the land of manna.
Team news
Scott Dann looks set to make his second successive appearance following his recovery from a dislocated shoulder. Centre-Half Elliot Ward is a doubt whilst Isiah Osbourne is definitely out.
Possible line-up
Marshall, McPake, Dann, Turner, Fox, Gunnarsson, Beuzelin, Doyle, Henderson, Morrison, Best.
Key man
Clinton Morrison is a striker Blues fans need no introduction to. The energetic workhorse made himself popular at St.Andrews with his work-rate and knack for getting vital goals in the Premiership. In the Football League, he almost has a track record of nabbing a goal every two league games, and is one to watch for any Championship side. He also has a knack of scoring in big games, as evident by the fact he scored against Wolves, Albion, Liverpool (where his brace led to us coming from 2-0 down at Anfield to draw 2-2 in September 2002) and of course, the two he got in two different games against Lozells FC. His energy also has the potential to out manoeuvre our rather immobile defence, creating space for others to run into.
Tactical strengths
Up front, their likely strike force of Best and Morrison has the physical prowess and mental configuration to really unsettle our defence. It is quite likely that Coventry may deploy a more direct style of play to try and get amongst us early, as it is probably known throughout the Championship that we are a side who do not start games brightly. One idea is that, to start with at least, we defend quite deep so that we do not allow their two strikers the space to run in behind our centre-halves.
Tactical weaknesses
One weakness I notice is that their central-midfielders are predominantly quite conservatively minded, with no natural inclination to create. This means we should start the game by defending with our two centre-midfielders in front of their two to shut them out and frustrate them. Coventry also lack true width, so, we should look to get men behind the ball at first to make ourselves tough to break down and to try and null the game as to get it under our control.
A second more obvious weakness is their concentration levels, or lack of them, as shown by the fact that they have recently conceded last-minute goals to lose leads. To try and impact upon this, we should look to bring on either Bouazza or Jerome to play up front towards the end to drag Coventry defenders out of position with their pace, and the lack of mental focus could mean they are unable to cover the spaces in the final third that will obviously leave.
They played for both teams
In recent times, there have been a few players to switch between the sides. Here are three.
Julian Gray-A talented and pacy left-winger who’s time at St.Andrews was blighted by bad luck, poor performance and a crowd who just seemed to want to deride him at any opportunity. After joining on a Bosman from Palace in the 2004 close season he started brightly for Blues in what became an increasingly disappointing season for us. His early form sparked rumours of an England call-up for the friendly at the Bernabaeu against Spain which was blighted by racist morons being let out of their cages to spout their bile, but nothing (some would say fortunately) materialised. After that, bar scoring the winner at home to Lozells, his form seemed to tail off, and the following season he became a figure of fun with desperate performances out of position at left-back as the club sank into the Championship. In 2007 he joined Coventry on a free, and like at Blues he had a good start before faltering. He moved on to Fulham last Summer.
Gary McSheffrey-Mr Coventry City has been, at one time or another, a favourite of fans at both clubs, though his popularity amongst both sets of fans at the moment is questionable. After coming through the ranks at Highfield Road, he made his debut in the Premiership at sixteen years of age away at Lozells during a fantastic 4-1 win for the Sky Blues. After getting thirty-one goals in two seasons for Coventry, he left the cash strapped club to join big-spending Blues looking to bounce straight back to the Premiership, and after an incredible period from September to December 2006 where he scored fourteen goals his form became downright poor, scoring just one league goal from open play. His downturn in form has led to him becoming criticized heavily by Bluenoses, but one hopes he can regain the form he had in his early days here.
Dele Adebola-The phrase you don’t know what you have until you lose it was never truer than with Dele Adebola at Blues. The Gangly Nigerian was often slighted for the way he played during his time at Blues. However if you now say a bad word against him in Bordesley Green you will get no response other than a glare that could kill. A semi-prolific second-tier goalscorer, his physical presence would cause mayhem for opponents, and like the aforementioned Clinton Morrison he could always be counted upon to get an important goal, such as against Watford in the 1999 play-off semi-final or against Tottenham and Newcastle in the League Cup run of 2001. After joining Coventry in July 2003, he averaged a not too prolific one-in-five goal ratio, but he could be counted upon to hold the ball up and bring others into play like he did at Blues, and once again he became a popular figure with the fans. As of today, he is still banging in the goals for Bristol City in the Championship.
Prediction
A keenly contested derby game where Coventry will look to really get amongst us, I do see Blues eventually capitalising upon their defensive frailties and running out narrow winners.
Score: Coventry 1-2 Blues
Blues Vs Coventry City
As I said in my last blog, I’m going to skip over Queens Park Rangers. We lost to a side that I’ve been telling everyone had been the worst side to visit St Andrew’s this season, we lost to a side with 10 men, we lost to a side that we really should have troubled more, we lost to a side that according to the experts, are underachieving and are under pressure. Granted, we had injuries of our own to contend with and late changes never help anyone. But it felt like just one of those days. We’re not going to go the whole season unbeaten but if we win our home games, we’ll pick up a decent haul on the road with our strength on the counter. This defeat was easy to rationalize for me. We lost a game, it’s going to happen. We can and probably will still win the Championship in my mind. For some though, it seems to be the end of the world.
Still, whichever side of the fence you sit on, you have to concede that Blues always bounce back, at least as far as results go. I was surprised to hear – and you might be too – that we haven’t lost back to back games since January 2008 (Chelsea and Sunderland) and we were facing a Coventry side that haven’t kept a clean sheet in their last seven, that have lost their last four, that are languishing just above the creaky trap door that covers League One? Surely we’d beat this lot?
I’d been stupidly excited about this game since Friday afternoon when I read on the Fox Sports website that it would be screened live here in Australia. It required a 6:30 AM get up but considering I’d been up at 3 AM to support Lewis Hamilton the previous night, 6:30 was more than a breeze. Knowing what I know now, I should’ve heeded my own warning from Friday night. “It would by typically Blues,” I announced to my Aussie hosts “to lose this one.” Since I was last in Australia in 2004, my hosts have learnt quite a bit about Blues – mostly about our brushes with success and our uncanny ability to kick ourselves unbelievably hard in an area that God only intended to be treated nicely on an all too regular basis.
Going to bed last night, I had that kid before Christmas feeling. I couldn’t wait for morning to come so I could get up and watch us knock the ball around, play some majestic football and put Coventry to the sword quite effortlessly. Especially since we’d despatched Sheffield Wednesday relatively comfortably in our last outing at St Andrew’s. I was convinced I’d be up at 4:30 AM, just pacing up and down waiting for the game to start. I wasn’t. I fell asleep during the Premier League Highlights show last night around 9:30 PM and was only awoken by an annoying, whining noise (my alarm, as opposed to one of the locals!) at 6:30. Enough time to do a coffee, see the team and then settle down to watch us comfortably annihilate our neighbours.
I should point out that I expect this from Blues every week. It doesn’t come from a place of experience or expectation, merely from a place that gets excited about seeing St Andrew’s on the telly, seeing the word ‘Birmingham’ written anywhere, a place that insists that my bedroom still has to be painted blue and white. I’m 27 but somewhere I got stuck when it came to supporting Blues. I’m still 7 when it comes to supporting Blues. I love the club unconditionally, I am loyal unconditionally, I believe we are the best, I believe everyone who supports another club is wrong and that we are the centre of the universe, not that I can possibly conceive how big the universe is at such an age, mind. Blues play, Blues must win, Blues must play well, everyone must love us. This is how I feel about Blues. My mind is capable of being sensible but most of the time, I support Blues with my heart. It’s an affliction. Really.
However, I invite you to join me. It makes football so much more fun when viewed through the eyes of a child instead of being able to comprehend just what the people involved in modern day football are really like.
My first surprise of the morning came upon opening the curtains. I was greeted by two fighting wallabies about 30 feet away from the back door. Occasionally they’d look up to see that I wasn’t doing them any harm then they’d continue to whack each other in the face (and to clarify : when I say ‘wallabies’, I mean small marsupials, I do not mean international rugby union players.) I watched for a good five minutes before one took off into the bushland with the other in hot pursuit. By the time I’d gotten back into the house, the Blues line-up was on the screen. Pretty much what I’d expected. I mumbled to myself “Yep, Taylor in goal, French Franck at left back, Agent and Radhi at centre back, Hunty right back, Lars… Hunty?” I scratched my head. The bad thing about sleeping through the day in the UK is that you’re either a) An alcoholic or b) On the other side of the world. Since I don’t drink, I was clearly on the other side of the planet and so had missed the news that we’d signed a bloke called Hunt from someone – or he was a youth player that I’d never heard of and had already elbowed Jared Wilson out of the way. Hmmm. It soon became apparent that it was Nicky Hunt, opinion pending.
I’d read yesterday that we were interested in Ryan Taylor from Wigan (not for the first time, either) for the right back slot but presumed that since a deal hadn’t been done, we’d be going with Jared Wilson against Coventry. Note to self : Presume to know nothing when it comes to the inner-workings of a manager’s head. I smiled to myself as I considered the speed at which Big Eck had found a replacement for Parnaby and Kelly. If only he’d been so quick to sign a centre half last January, I might be arising early from my pit and missing much needed beauty sleep for games against substantially better opposition, my mind mused (yes, if you’re a Coventry fan, you might well be saying to yourself “You want to try beating us before you go thinking about playing anyone better, Brummie Boy!” Feck off.) I sloshed around in the memory bank for what I knew about Nicky Hunt. “Reading? That was nice of Coppell to let his full back go to a promotion rival… but then, he’s that sort of chap, isn’t he?” Then I considered it. Surely I’d gotten it wrong. It’s been driving me to distraction all day. Just who does Nicky Hunt play for?
I must confess that the last time I was in Australia, I found myself falling out of touch with the news in the lower leagues of English football. They tend to cover the Premier League exclusively here and since Blues were riding high at the time, I sort of thought it a bit of a waste of time in keeping up since we wouldn’t be going back there any time soon! When I arrived home in January 2005, I just sort of kept my ignorance up and when we did slip out of the top division, I was, shall we say, more than a bit perplexed about the division in which we found ourselves. I’ve made a point of trying to keep up with all divisons in England since but my knowledge is nowhere near what it used to be – and considering where Blues are and what our attendances have dropped to, I feel a bit guilty for becoming a bit of a fair weather football fan in that sense. I no longer obsessively pour over the pages of ‘British Footbal Weekly’ or the Beeb or Sky Sports sites like I used to.
This will change when I get broadband, I tell myself. In the UK, it’s not too difficult to keep up with certain moves because things like teletext and the last 20 odd pages of pretty much any newspaper are exclusively football – as is Setanta Sports News and Sky Sports News. Therefore, spending hours and hours trawling through sports sites isn’t really too necessary. You just sort of absorb information about football without wishing to. Here though, they do the round up of the Premier League and that’s pretty much your lot. So I need to commit to keeping up with football these days. Only, the problem is that I’m on dial up and using the internet involves paying a connection charge and then tying up the phone line. Not to mention the chronic speed of the thing on modern day websites. Ad blockers help but it’s still far from ideal. For the last two weeks, I’m pleading sheer inconvenience for I know of not much that’s happening in the football world. And this is my excuse for not immediately finding out who Nicky Hunt plays for. I shall dial up shortly and find out. Just as soon as I’m done with this (it disconnects after four hours and with the speed I write articles, if I dialled up now, checked, put it into this article and then finished it, it would disconnect leaving me no time to actually post this thing. So therefore, I shall be honest and say that I can’t remember who Nicky Hunt plays for.)
Onto the game and my first thought was about how empty St Andrew’s looked. Then I was thankful that Newcastle versus the Villa was on Fox Sports 1 because the majority of Australia would be tuning into that and therefore, missing just how sad St Andrew’s looked. I tell everyone all the time just what St Andrew’s can be like but none of them have ever seen any evidence of it, either in person or on the TV. Everyone should experience a full and rocking St Andrew’s just once. It’s the best place on Earth as far as I’m concerned. And I’ve seen some fairly impressive places. But somehow, 17,000 on a cold Monday night when it seems as though those 17,000 are being held there under duress just doesn’t seem to cut it.
Onto the game, what’s to be said?
I generally try and avoid writing reports or opinions straight after the game because inevitably, the disappointment or jubilation tends to influence just exactly how I saw the game (I think it’s the same for most people, too) and after looking forward to this one for 3 solid days, I can’t stop the disappointment gnawing away at me. I’m torn between which way to go with the report and my opinion because the Coventry City ‘keeper was named man of the match but at no point did I feel like we were deserving of the three points (aside from the “I support Blues and we should always win, Dagnamit!” sort of way) and as I think back through the 3 hours since the game finished, I’m consumed with anger and disappointment about the fact that they’ve let me down so badly again. In that sense, I’m not like a kid… if you buy me a Big Mac and a large Coke from McDonalds, I don’t forget that Blues have fecked up again. I don’t forget that I’ve invested quite a lot in them when it comes to this one game alone and yet again, they’ve done it. They’ve lost a game that no-one in their right mind would’ve put money on them losing. That hurts and yes, that’s typical Blues.
Positives:
We did create chances – albeit not clear cut ones and sometimes they were a touch fortuitous but chances nonetheless. Westwood made some almost superhuman saves and on another day, despite our not playing well, we could’ve put 2 or 3 away today.
Nicky Hunt – I thought he looked okay and slotted in well. He crossed well, too. Cameron Jerome cannot cross the ball. Let’s try and stop him doing that, hey?
Quincy – He came on and tried to change the game. His energy as well as his skill on the ball was a joy to behold and when he was in possession, you did get the feeling that something might happen. A conundrum because sometimes, he disappears completely when he’s given a start.
James McFadden – Given a start, McFads looked better. At times, you could tell he is a class apart in this division and if given a run of games, I’m convinced he’ll learn to trust his team mates a bit more as well as be able to make centre halves look rather foolish with his skill and class.
No. You know what? I’m pissed off with positive today. I’m completely pissed off and I think I summed up such a performance with my own rant just before the final whistle “Before today, I claimed that QPR were the worse side I’d seen at St Andrew’s this season. Today, I change my mind. It’s actually us!” That said, I was having one of those days by the time half time had come. Things weren’t going to plan. We weren’t playing well, we weren’t 5-0 up like I’d imagined all weekend and although I still backed us to win, I couldn’t help but feel that it would be another nervy 1-0 with it doing nothing to douse the flames of apathy at St Andrew’s. I want the clouds gone and when it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen, I turned into a typical whingeing Pom.
I accused Dion Dublin of being biased (“He played for Coventry and the Vile and he nutted one of our players once, how can he possibly be objective???”) when he claimed that Coventry were the better side at the break, I bemoaned every misplaced pass, I slated Clinton O’Morrison for over celebrating (even though he claimed he didn’t in his post match interview and was actually very complimentary about us!) and not to mention what I muttered about Ridgewell when he held back Morrison for a clear penalty in the first half. It was spoiled, all ruined, all rubbish. Blues losing tends to have that effect, doesn’t it? For the rest of the day / weekend / whatever, things are just a little bit less good than they ought to be.
In truth, we never really looked like a side. Occasionally we’d put a small passage of play together that gave hope to a more sustained period of pressure and more good play but it never seemed to completely click. We were disjointed and uneven and the three in midfield up against Coventry’s four always seemed to struggle. Gary Birtles made the point that Coventry ALWAYS had Mifsud floating around on the wing and he was a great out ball whereas Blues had no-one. Time and time again, we lacked width on the left and it all went too central and too tight. Coventry – especially after the goal – packed the middle of the defence and Blues found it increasingly more difficult to find the key to unlock a determined Sky Blues back line.
And that’s not to take anything away from Coventry who, at times, played some neat football and looked dangerous on the counter attack without creating too much to worry Maik Taylor. Jay Tabb really ought to have made it 2-0 and had he done so, it might’ve even become 3 or 4 as Blues would’ve gone even more kamikaze to try and get back into the game. At the end, we had four up although a lack of movement (something that’s difficult to pick up on TV) was evident as Quincy, 25 yards from goal, ran parallel along the edge of the Coventry area with the ball at his feet with his arms out to his side frustratedly asking for a ball for him to play. With so many good strikers, we really ought to do better and I’ve often wondered whether St Andrew’s is a good place to come and defend for away sides because the pitch is so small and packing the defence whilst always showing our wingers (not that we had any genuine wingers on display today) inside always leaves a severe lack of room and only the very best through ball will suffice. Today and not for the first time, we lacked that very thing. That and too many balls not finding their targets with too many being cut out and our crossing simply not being good enough. Jerome in particular struggled with his delivery into the box all night long.
Overall, I’d file this one in the ‘frustrating and confusing’ category. The Coventry ‘keeper winning man of the match whilst most agreeing that Blues didn’t really turn up until the last twenty minutes or so. Our visitors came, opted to try and play and ultimately reaped their rewards. They were slicker than us in the first half and whilst the clear cut chances went our way, a combination of a great goalkeeping display and a lack of top class finishing was ultimately our undoing.
After QPR, I wasn’t unduly worried. As I said, we’re going to lose games on the road against promotion rivals and even, occasionally, against sides that we really should be beating. But two games on the bounce given the performances is a bit of a worry and Big Eck and his team really need to act quickly to halt the trend. Especially given a highly unforgiving support that do not seem to be satisfied with much at the moment. A good win and a decent performance would be very much a welcome tonic, especially given that we’re now four points behind a club that no-one likes to be four points behind.
Onto Nottingham we go.
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