Forest Next Up

1 Oct 2021 | 7 comments

Birmingham City

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Nottingham Forest

In Off The Post

The following article has been written by one of our Trust members.  They are the opinions of that person and not necessarily those of Blues Trust.  Would you like to contribute a discussion point of your own about Birmingham City Football Club?  If so, we would be delighted to hear from you.

Patience is beginning to run a bit thin with many of us Blues supporters. We are a forgiving lot with many aspects of the club, and we readily back whoever comes in and takes the job of Manager/Head Coach. What has suddenly forced itself upon us is the inability to score goals, with strikers at the moment not worthy of the name.

Against Fulham, Peterborough, Preston and QPR we have managed just one goal and that being a penalty. A once healthy goal difference of plus 7 has rapidly become a minus 2. Lee Bowyer, as generous and protective as ever, supports his players and I have no doubt that he is the man to see us through this awful barren spell.

Nottingham Forest represents another decent opportunity to get a win and resurrect confidence all round. Particularly with our attacking players. My real concern is the fact that Jutkiewicz, Aneke, Hogan and Deeney appear to lack any clinical presence in front of goal. We hear the well-trodden words about supply and support by wide men and midfielders, but from recent games there doesn’t appear to be a clinical finisher amongst them. Attack minded bench players such as Graham and McGree remain almost completely untried, which doesn’t augur well.

The win and five goal feast we enjoyed against Luton seems a distance ago now, with many of us supporters at the time getting excited with the performance and our then elevated league position. What we desperately want is to halt this slide and not fall into a clutch of lower half clubs battling it out just to reach halfway. Bowyer now has a situation on his hands as to who and how is best equipped to address this striker problem.

Perhaps there isn’t a solution within the camp and maybe we have to accept that?  But surely the likes of Deeney and Hogan/Jutkiewicz need to do better?  Many will point out that we are only ten games into the new season and that may be true, but consecutive games against those teams I have listed without producing one outfield goal does highlight a problem.

We all have views why this is, and my own is that we are certainly a yard slower than most opposition strikers leading me to believe that Tahith Chong should play alongside Deeney or Jutkiewicz. My patience with Hogan has sadly been lost.  Against Forest we have to show something different, hence my choice for Chong.  Flat back four and four midfielders are what we are best at with the two upfront. Here’s hoping.

Mitchell Bray

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7 Comments

  1. Big Blue Kev

    We haven’t got any money to spend all teams want a 20 goal getter. We have what we’ve got and fingers crossed it clicks and we go again. Look what’s happening at the make up of the squad. A good number of loans (why because we haven’t got the money to invest and I wonder why that is?), some young ones from the U23s (there’s potential talent) and the rest our own. We are mid table, played some good football with the odd not so good. In the majority of games we’ve kept going and mostly never given up. We’ve tried adapting the formation to suit teams (we hadn’t got a clue to do that with recent past managers). Especially with the lack of money coming in from the owners, we have had to sell talent to keep us within EFL regs, the stand fiasco, the refund fiasco, the certain off-field senior management cock ups. In my opinion its not been to bad on the field but off it we have major issues to address before it may all crumble. So let’s keep smiling, have good banter and have some fun when we can. Anyway off to my sun lounger. KRO

  2. Smithy

    Colour it any way we want to. Fact is Hogan Jutkiewicz and Deeney are slow. Blues should have produced some young gun through the ranks by now instead of buying in older hands that have seen better days. Odin Bailey is a bit of a livewire so why not did the club give him a real go.

  3. Jonno

    Deeney should never have been signed any money available should have gone to bringing in a pacy youngster. As it is should be Juke and Hogan up front. Need to revert to 4 r 2 and get some width in the team. As stated above youngsters like Bailey, Strick should never have gone out on loan.

  4. Rob

    Towards the end of the Derby game we had Chong and Deeney upfront. Premier League players at Blues with pace, skill, strength and finishing between them. Surely we have a chance of mid table as minimum.

    It’s not been repeated since and you still would need the midfielders to give them the ball but it wight be worth a try.

    Failing that, whatever our formation is, the plan must be to get the ball to Chong as much as possible. He’s our best player by far and even with a couple of defenders on him I’d back him to do something positive 8 out of 10 times.

    Agree with all the comments above about no cash and giving the youth a chance.

    Good luck to the lads Saturday.

    • Tilton Rod

      On the train making the long journey home from St Andrew’s after witnessing a shocking display.

      Sure, they could have been 2 goals up before Forest scored but, honestly, it was dreadful.

      I have no idea why the wheels have come off this past month but they well and truly have. No pace. No invention. No movement. And no defensive resolve. And to cap it all they gifted Forest their 3 goals.

      Even the managers performance left me scratching my head. Persistence with a system that has clearly been found out by opponents and without the proper tools for the job. Poor in game management. And no visible signs of encouragement from the touchline. I’m still a fan of LB but this was nowhere near good enough.

      It was far too late when McGree came on but he did well and at least started to move us forward. And I’m guessing we must be contracted to play Chong because after his early individual error led to the first goal he offered us nothing yet stayed on the pitch.

      If LB didn’t quite know the scale of the challenge he is facing, he certainly does now.

      Baggies up next. Oh well…..

      KRO

  5. Smithy

    Wretched display. Deeney’s arrival has upset the whole setup in my opinion. We are a team of heavy sluggish individuals.

  6. Mitchell Bray

    Lose without scoring at Peterborough, then scoreless at home to Preston, then scoreless away at QPR and now 0-3 today to Forest. Not a single goal and again I have to add that Hogan/Jutkiewicz/Deeney/Aneke all woefully slow.Money was there for Deeney deal but looks a gamble now. Should he score the winner at West Brom. then all is forgiven. However the bigger picture is worrying.

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