OFFICIAL MATCH THREAD - Birmingham City v Norwich City

[San Miguel 0]

great result, and we actually moved up a place!!!

OTBC

[WeAreYellows49 0]

Lee apparently played very well, keep up the graft and keep the passion flowing and we ''might'' stay up yet.

[Gingerpele 0]

Good result, lol and Man.U lost to Fulham, with two sending offs, :P

[Canary_on_the Trent 0]

Better off than we were before kick off, i would have certainly taken that this morning

[YankeeCanary 0]

Sounds like a brave performance by the boys! Ever better, a good attitude seems to be back in the dressing room.

[......and Smith must score. 1,332]

Forest, Plymouth losing, Soton drawing.............it''s been a good day

[San Miguel 0]

I was dubious about the changes but Adams reckons it was the best performance of the season

the number of other draws have been a blessing today, esp when i expected no points today - fewer points on the board for the other teams

[Clever Farke 64]

[quote user="......and Smith must score."]

Forest, Plymouth losing, Soton drawing.............it''s been a good day

[/quote]

Great hardworking performance, deserved to win and would have but for the ref and would''ve kept another clean sheet, were by far the better team.

[......and Smith must score. 1,332]

Just been a caller on Canary Call called Simon.

Apparently he listened to the commentary on his tractor.

Classic......

[Gentleman Jim 0]

Well done Gunny and Co, 

A great point, I thought it would have been a good idea to bring on a fresh pair of legs in the final minutes when Mooney was tiring, but Gunny got everything else spot on with team selection and tactics.

 

 

[ca 1]

Think we''re the main game on the Championship tomorrow so that should be good viewing.

Clingan seems to think their goal was a foul on Marshall.

[John 0]

Only one team in the bottom half of the table won today (being Coventry, and that was against Doncaster).[:O]

[Gingerpele 0]

know one else wants to LOL at man.u?

[O.T.B.C 0]

No as I wuite like them and hate Liverpool.

[WeAreYellows49 0]

[quote user="Ginger Pele"]know one else wants to LOL at man.u?
[/quote]

I did hugely earlier in the thread, abour time someone put that arrogant manager and his arrogant fans in their place. LMFAO @ Shrek getting sent off and the ginger one

[YankeeCanary 0]

[quote user="......and Smith must score."]

Just been a caller on Canary Call called Simon.

Apparently he listened to the commentary on his tractor.

Classic......

[/quote]

What Simon didn''t tell us is that, due to the economic conditions, he''s still searching for potatoes from last years crop.

[BlyBlyBabes 0]

[quote user="Ginger Pele"]know one else wants to LOL at man.u?
[/quote]

No.

OTBC

[YankeeCanary 0]

A view of a Birmingham supporter from the Blues website.

My view, for those who care:

For the first time in a while it seems McLeish had a few selection choices to make before kick off, and as usual when he has a few choices to make, he''s always going to ''mix it up'' a bit. And, as usual when he starts mucking around, the result was ninety minutes of pedestrian, predictable, tepid rubbish. Things didn''t start well, being told to intimidate the opposition is one thing, but for a start there were more of them than us and they were shouting things from the other end of the ground. Meanies. The Blues responded the only way they know how, by lulling the opposition into a sense of security by offering them a free pop at goal within a couple of minutes. Alan Lee should have scored, but was probably put off by the new bit of carpet in the goalmouth.

After that, I''d love to say that Blues settled and began stroking the ball around and gaining in confidence but well, I''d be lying. The ball was being thumped up at the earliest opportunity and Shackell was winning everything in the air. The new tactic seemed to be to kick it over his head, which resulted in the ball trickling through to the goalkeeper (more on him later) or out for goal kicks. At the other end Dancing Alan Gow was causing Carr and Larsson a few problems down the Blues right, Alan Lee was keeping the Blues physio in work and for some reason Lee Carsley changed his shorts and shirt at the side of the pitch. It was probably the most impressive thing he did all day.

Carney crossed from the Norwich right, Jaidi flicked on and Gow rolled the ball across an open goal, which fortunately for Blues was out of range of any attacking players, and then Gow walked round Larsson and shot wide of the near post when a cross was the wiser option. It was, more or less, one way traffic. Which obviously meant Blues were going to score, which they did. Now, Bouazza can''t cross. He''ll hit the odd fluke ball in there which will land somewhere in the vicinity of the goal, but David Beckham he ain''t. In this case he boomed one somewhere into the middle of the box, which Jerome gamely jumped for, and for some bizarre reason David Marshall decided to ignore the ball and swat at a pesky bee infront of him, before trying to rugby tackle Jerome to the floor. Stupid goal, not the first of the season. When people start going on about the lack of penalties we''ve had this season, the counterbalance to that lack of penalties is the number of times a goalkeeper has done something irredeemably stupid to gift the Blues a goal. This one wasn''t quite on a par with Nicky Weaver, but it was at least the equal of Brian Jensen.

After the goal, I''d love to say that Blues settled and began stroking the ball around and gaining in confidence but well, I''d be lying. Bowyer and Carsley were anonymous, Larsson was struggling to add any width, and twice was guilty of giving away sloppy balls when Carr had gone past him on the overlap. Had Alan Lee not sent Franck into meltdown (which had the natural effect of winding the crowd up) then there would doubtless have been a few murmurs at half-time. We were winning, but it wasn''t pretty, that''s for sure. As someone successful once said.

Second half, after the usual hokey-cokey stuff, and absolutely nothing changed. Who decided to do this coming out five minutes before kick off and dancing thing? What is it supposed to achieve? It just ends up with the crowd warmly applauding the opposition back on when they finally decide to join us, instead of intimidating them like what the man told us to. After what, ten minutes or so, it was all sorted. Bouazza''s 50p head stuck a beautifully flighted free kick from Seb wide of the post, and Norwich scored. Carsley tried to play football and ended up giving away a free kick, Clingan popped it in the goal, and afterwards Norwich, despite what we''re being told is an awful potato field not fit for football, played some very, very nice football. Little triangles, passing and moving, creating space and openings for each other, Blues were defending on the stretch for a long while and it''s credit to the backline that Taylor wasn''t called into desperate action too often, because when he was he flapped like a, well a David Marshall, and Seb had to head off the line.

At the other end, Bouazza made way to Sinclair, whose first touch rolled under his foot and out of play, and the rest of his touches were probably about as good. On the odd occasions that we did get balls into the box, Marshall looked like a man having to deal with hand grenades rather than footballs, and yet we still didn''t create anything. Nothing. Not a single chance worthy of note. Kevin Phillips came on and somehow managed to direct a header on target under pressure, but he would''ve had to have been Ruud Gullit in his prime to have scored. He isn''t Ruud Gullit in his prime, sadly.

Full time came, the boos rang out, and everyone went home wondering what the excuse would be for yet another mediocre display. Turns out it was the pitch this week. But hang on, the pitch not being very good isn''t a surprise surely? It''s been like that for years. Deal with it. Swansea did, Burnley did and yesterday Norwich did too. We have better players than those teams.

[ca 1]

Thanks for that Yankee, its good to hear compliments about our style of play from opposing fans.