Breaking The Cycle

11 Jan 2023 | 11 comments

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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.

Three defeats on the bounce plus hamstrings galore have certainly put a dampener on proceedings.  Seventeenth position in the table with twenty games to go has more or less decided what many feel will be our target for the remainder of this season. Survival.  Again.

What has been so disappointing is the fragile nature of the last three results.  And at a time when, maybe, better returns could have persuaded our hierarchy to invest in this January window.  They may still do so depending on the outcome of our next league game against Bristol City.

Getting that depressing outburst out of the way, here comes what I feel might be a different scenario for this coming Saturday and beyond. Having had the cup game postponed against Forest Green Rovers last weekend, the squad will have had almost a full fortnight of rest and, hopefully, the healing of tired limbs.  Hamstrings apart, the refreshed players need to perform and straight to the point ‘give us supporters a show’.  We deserve it if only for not exactly being demanding or greedy.

Since these last three defeats the balloon has certainly deflated with talk around our loyal followers centred on survival.  Not good enough anymore in my opinion, with this annual ritual now entering well over a full decade.  We need the players to break this wretched cycle of getting over the line and guarantee another season of second tier football.

Whatever this month’s incomings and outgoings deliver, John Eustace needs to recapture that spirit of this season being significantly better than the last.  Millwall, Luton, Preston and Sunderland now start their twenty game campaigns with real hope and backed by supporters with belief and, above all, a buzz.  These four clubs have no world beating strikers or silky creative maestros in midfield areas, but a desire to at least challenge for a single digit place in the Championship table.

John Eustace has players returning from injury with, who knows, maybe even a couple of new arrivals to come as well.  That should help ensure that the team joins the challenge of climbing higher than this awful seventeenth ‘home’ that so regularly arrives.  We start up again at Bristol City on Saturday, the first league game after the holiday season.  A win will make a huge difference and soften the disappointment of the festive period.  As supporters of our club we have a habit of bouncing back after setbacks and a “winning Blues” will re-ignite the smiles.

Mitchell Bray

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11 Comments

  1. Tracey Tyler

    The continuing problem is lack of goals,our midfield contribution of goals this season has been abysmal,2 goals from midfield is not great.What the answer is l do not know,all l can put it down too is lack of quality which is the reason why we are where we are or maybe the system we are playing but agree that the midfielders in particular ie Hall,Bacuna,Chong,Hannibal and now Khedra need to step up to the plate and quick.

  2. Smithy

    Hope Khedra is fit and not another needing ‘to get up to match fitness etc. ‘ Also please stop these bloomin Hamstrings. I can remember David Dunn and his- moment he left us he played almost every game! Perhaps it’s the Wast Hills pitches.

  3. Peter Bates

    Hope to be at least top half come the season end,but won’t we be in the same situation again next season with loan players going back to there clubs after we’ve made them better players ,I would love to think that money would be spent on players who would be on 2and3 year contracts, but unfortunately I don’t see it happening would willingly be happy to say I was wrong but let’s get up the table now and who knows kro

    • John P

      I agree with everything you say Peter, and come next July the manager will once again be scraping around to see who he can loan.

      If some of these loans turned into permanent signing such as was with Chong then we’d see some benefit, a bit of clarity and a squad that doesn’t chop and change six or seven players every summer and the odd change in January would be wonderful for us all. We need stability, a very foreign word for our present owners. We need a stadium (which has never been completed) that is renovated and somewhere to be proud of, one which the club once more owns.

      Let’s face it, most of us aren’t bemoaning the effort made by the squad and the coaching staff, it’s the owners, who only want us so they can be members of the HKSE, who have dragged this once proud and wonderful club into the mire.

      Like you Peter, and I hate to say it, but I see the next twelve months being groundhog day, but I’d love to be proved wrong.

  4. Mark R

    Despite the recent lack of goals or results on the pitch, and in the face of the usual lack of ambition from our owners (ambition for the football club that is, not themselves as individuals!), one thing we have never been able to criticise is a lack of effort from the Head Coach or any of the players this season.
    So if that’s the one thing we can count on, the least we can do as fans is get behind the boys.
    As Brian Clough used to say, ‘If you work hard, you give yourself a better chance of playing well, and if you play well we give ourselves a better chance of winning’.
    As long as they all continue to put the effort in, I think we have more than enough quality to stay up comfortably, and possibly still ‘threaten’ the top 6 this season.
    With the addition of Kedra and the imminent return of Hogan, I’m sure the goals will come!
    Come on you Blue Boys!!!

  5. John P

    A mid table finish without a relegation scrap will do me, as I’ve said before with our present owners bleeding the club dry we can’t afford promotion anyway. Also the EFL has to be made accountable, the Coventry takeover was completed in two months whereas ours never got near the finishing post, I can’t help feeling that the EFL have got it in for Birmingham, if they’d sanctioned the takeover me may have been in a much better position to compete in this transfer window.

    We have been unlucky (again) with injuries and with such a small and youthful squad things have been detrimental to our playing staff’s wellbeing. We are again a team that all others want to play because we’re easy to beat, we can’t score goals and we keep conceding them. However, I’m not putting a downer on the playing squad or the manager, I blame our feeble non-visible owners and the EFL for our present predicament.

    KRO Bluenoses.

  6. Peter Bates

    Good post John p let’s all get behind the players and manager kro

  7. Charles

    Yes I feel optimistic for a mid table finish. As previous comments I too would accept a comfortable second half if only for the sake of my poor old heart!No stress please.

  8. WayCoolBlue

    It has from the start of the season been a comfortable mid table finish. Anything more than that would be a bonus. The problem at Birmingham is not just the owners although they are rubbish. It’s also supporters over expectorating at the beginning of the season. Everybody had us down as 24th relegated. We have outperformed all predictions as per usual.

    A lot of injuries meant that we could not compete in the last three games. We wasn’t very competitive at all but we do have players coming back from injury. It’s a shame we don’t have enough players or the money to bring those players in but as things stand we are doing amicably.

    Obviously I want us to do better than that, but until these owners are gone, I can’t see that happening it will be scraping around for loans and battling for survival for the foreseeable future.

    If we can finish comfortably mid-table this season, I will be very happy.

  9. Mitchell

    Great comments WaycoolBlue. Puts things into perspective.

  10. Mitchell

    After today’s debacle at Bristol, I can only say that these are now worrying times at Blues. Four defeats against moderate opposition is now sad.

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