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Birmingham: Standing Still Would Be Success
Topic Started: Aug 6 2010, 08:08 AM (510 Views)
the double m
Geoff Horsfield
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http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8...6296256,00.html

Quote:
 
Manager: Alex McLeish (since November 2007). Odds on being first out of a job: 14-1 joint seventh favourite.
Last season
Premier League: 9th, 50 points. FA Cup: Quarter-finals. Carling Cup: Third round.
Transfers in: Ben Foster (Manchester United, £6m), Nikola Zigic (Valencia,£6m), Enric Valles (NAC Breda, free)
Transfers out: Joe Hart (Manchester City, end of loan), Christian Benitez (Santos Laguna, free), Teemu Tainio (Sunderland, end of loan), Lee Carsley (Coventry City, free), Franck Queudrue (Panionios, free), Gary McSheffrey (Coventry City, free), Gregory Vignal (released)

It was expected to be a year of change for Birmingham City - after all, last year Carson Yeung, after a couple of seasons as an investor, took full ownership of the club and talk was of Alex McLeish having a substantial transfer fund at his disposal. Yet despite a certain amount of spending, the transformation came the old-fashioned way.

Notionally the largest purchase, that of Ecuador's Christian Benitez, did not work out and it emerged that it was actually a form of loan rather than a permanent transfer. Instead it was the less-heralded moves for Roger Johnson and Scott Dann that proved winners, along with the loan deal for Joe Hart.

Yet despite the praise for McLeish and his side's top-half finish, in the season after promotion, it is worth looking at the goal difference column of the league table, which reads '-9'. City scored only a goal per game, exactly, and conceded nine more.

Ben Foster has been bought this summer but is not exactly a like-for-like replacement for Hart: the Manchester City man was in form last season and went to the World Cup, while the United player slipped back badly, performing poorly for his club and losing his England squad place. Nikola Zigic cuts a figure, certainly, and scored prolifically on loan at Racing Santander - but he had failed to make the expected impression at Valencia.

In sum, unless McLeish brings in substantial reinforcements in the next few weeks, it is hard to see how Birmingham can expect to make much progress on last season. For a newly-promoted side to survive and thrive was impressive but 11 points separated City from Everton at the end of the season and they had a worse goal difference than Fulham and Sunderland.

Birmingham do represent part of a West Midlands renaissance: they and Wolves both stayed up after joining Aston Villa in the top flight and West Brom have been promoted, too. Sadly for City, Villa had the best of both derbies last season and though McLeish's team beat Wolves twice, the impression remains that City are not going to finish ahead of Villa or any of the rest of last season's top eight this time around.

If City's ambitions are limited to being the best of the rest then they start away to direct rivals in the shape of Sunderland, before hosting Blackburn then travelling to Bolton. That is a very friendly start to proceedings and things hardly get worse after the international break. Since long before McLeish, Birmingham seem to have had Liverpool's measure home and away and will approach the St Andrew's fixture optimistically. They also have home games against Wigan and Everton following the first derby of the season at The Hawthorns.

Perhaps if City can get off to a flying start through these matches then they will be flying high and there will be talk of Europe - as there was with Sunderland last autumn. But unless there is more investment now, I cannot see such a challenge being sustained.


Pretty accurate description. We could do well, we could not! It all remains to be seen!
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ESONEULB
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the double m
Aug 6 2010, 09:08 AM
http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8...6296256,00.html

Quote:
 
Manager: Alex McLeish (since November 2007). Odds on being first out of a job: 14-1 joint seventh favourite.
Last season
Premier League: 9th, 50 points. FA Cup: Quarter-finals. Carling Cup: Third round.
Transfers in: Ben Foster (Manchester United, £6m), Nikola Zigic (Valencia,£6m), Enric Valles (NAC Breda, free)
Transfers out: Joe Hart (Manchester City, end of loan), Christian Benitez (Santos Laguna, free), Teemu Tainio (Sunderland, end of loan), Lee Carsley (Coventry City, free), Franck Queudrue (Panionios, free), Gary McSheffrey (Coventry City, free), Gregory Vignal (released)

It was expected to be a year of change for Birmingham City - after all, last year Carson Yeung, after a couple of seasons as an investor, took full ownership of the club and talk was of Alex McLeish having a substantial transfer fund at his disposal. Yet despite a certain amount of spending, the transformation came the old-fashioned way.

Notionally the largest purchase, that of Ecuador's Christian Benitez, did not work out and it emerged that it was actually a form of loan rather than a permanent transfer. Instead it was the less-heralded moves for Roger Johnson and Scott Dann that proved winners, along with the loan deal for Joe Hart.

Yet despite the praise for McLeish and his side's top-half finish, in the season after promotion, it is worth looking at the goal difference column of the league table, which reads '-9'. City scored only a goal per game, exactly, and conceded nine more.

Ben Foster has been bought this summer but is not exactly a like-for-like replacement for Hart: the Manchester City man was in form last season and went to the World Cup, while the United player slipped back badly, performing poorly for his club and losing his England squad place. Nikola Zigic cuts a figure, certainly, and scored prolifically on loan at Racing Santander - but he had failed to make the expected impression at Valencia.

In sum, unless McLeish brings in substantial reinforcements in the next few weeks, it is hard to see how Birmingham can expect to make much progress on last season. For a newly-promoted side to survive and thrive was impressive but 11 points separated City from Everton at the end of the season and they had a worse goal difference than Fulham and Sunderland.

Birmingham do represent part of a West Midlands renaissance: they and Wolves both stayed up after joining Aston Villa in the top flight and West Brom have been promoted, too. Sadly for City, Villa had the best of both derbies last season and though McLeish's team beat Wolves twice, the impression remains that City are not going to finish ahead of Villa or any of the rest of last season's top eight this time around.

If City's ambitions are limited to being the best of the rest then they start away to direct rivals in the shape of Sunderland, before hosting Blackburn then travelling to Bolton. That is a very friendly start to proceedings and things hardly get worse after the international break. Since long before McLeish, Birmingham seem to have had Liverpool's measure home and away and will approach the St Andrew's fixture optimistically. They also have home games against Wigan and Everton following the first derby of the season at The Hawthorns.

Perhaps if City can get off to a flying start through these matches then they will be flying high and there will be talk of Europe - as there was with Sunderland last autumn. But unless there is more investment now, I cannot see such a challenge being sustained.


Pretty accurate description. We could do well, we could not! It all remains to be seen!

We will sign some more players yet.............. **thumbup
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jenni
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Paul Tait
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Well finishing 9th again this coming season nobody can deny that it would be a successful season.
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bluenosekev
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Gil Merrick
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Well if we stand still performance and points wise from since January this year then we are doomed..

Standing still so far in 2010 would not be classed as a success..

Standing still in 2010 would = relegation.

Kro.
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Amuser
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Geoff Horsfield
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bluenosekev
Aug 6 2010, 03:47 PM
Well if we stand still performance and points wise from since January this year then we are doomed..

Standing still so far in 2010 would not be classed as a success..

Standing still in 2010 would = relegation.

Kro.

You really are living proof that you can always find stats to fit any argument :LOL:
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pooley
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standing still is only success if you win everything - we should always be looking at improving, even if it only one place up the table
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Amuser
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Geoff Horsfield
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pooley
Aug 6 2010, 04:09 PM
standing still is only success if you win everything - we should always be looking at improving, even if it only one place up the table

Generally I agree, but at the same time I think we need to prove that last season wasn't a fluke.
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ESONEULB
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Amuser
Aug 6 2010, 05:14 PM
pooley
Aug 6 2010, 04:09 PM
standing still is only success if you win everything - we should always be looking at improving, even if it only one place up the table

Generally I agree, but at the same time I think we need to prove that last season wasn't a fluke.

If we end up with the same team i would at least like to think we bought in some good future prospects like Clyne
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pooley
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Amuser
Aug 6 2010, 04:14 PM
pooley
Aug 6 2010, 04:09 PM
standing still is only success if you win everything - we should always be looking at improving, even if it only one place up the table

Generally I agree, but at the same time I think we need to prove that last season wasn't a fluke.

I dont think you can fluke a season - maybe a game or two but not the run like we had - I think we deserved that run.
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PartisanBCFC
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Jack Wiseman
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Personally I think we'll move on and finish top 8

That has to be considered progress and success considering we only came back up in 2009

A lot was expected of Bruce's new look side when we finished 10th in 2004 and then finished the following campaign a disappointing 12th in 2005 after the team lost it's momentum.......The departure of Mark Bowen in the summer of 04 had a lot ot do with it, many fans believe

Hope we don't make the same mistakes.....although funnily enough Aitken and Thomspon have just departed this summer

:blink:




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alfred E nueman
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Mikael Forssell
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bluenosekev
Aug 6 2010, 04:47 PM
Well if we stand still performance and points wise from since January this year then we are doomed..

Standing still so far in 2010 would not be classed as a success..

Standing still in 2010 would = relegation.

Kro.

Gordon Bennet.

Reality v Blues Bashing.


Jan 2nd we were 7th

Jan 30th = 8th

Feb 27th = 8th

March 27th = 9th

End of Season = 9th.

There are 19 other clubs in this division and whilst our form was worse in the second half, so was a lot of other clubs - that is natural.

You seem like a spin doctor for villa mate.

Lighten up and appreciate what we've achieved.



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Amuser
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Geoff Horsfield
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pooley
Aug 6 2010, 05:03 PM
Amuser
Aug 6 2010, 04:14 PM
pooley
Aug 6 2010, 04:09 PM
standing still is only success if you win everything - we should always be looking at improving, even if it only one place up the table

Generally I agree, but at the same time I think we need to prove that last season wasn't a fluke.

I dont think you can fluke a season - maybe a game or two but not the run like we had - I think we deserved that run.

I think we did too, don't get me wrong. However, we didn't really suffer any setbacks and our season owed a lot to a great run where the players played out of their skins, but which could still be considered a purple patch. I still think we need to go out this season and comfortably avoid relegation to show that we weren't over-reaching.
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bluenosekev
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Gil Merrick
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alfred E nueman
Aug 6 2010, 06:46 PM
bluenosekev
Aug 6 2010, 04:47 PM
Well if we stand still performance and points wise from since January this year then we are doomed..

Standing still so far in 2010 would not be classed as a success..

Standing still in 2010 would = relegation.

Kro.

Gordon Bennet.

Reality v Blues Bashing.


Jan 2nd we were 7th

Jan 30th = 8th

Feb 27th = 8th

March 27th = 9th

End of Season = 9th.

There are 19 other clubs in this division and whilst our form was worse in the second half, so was a lot of other clubs - that is natural.

You seem like a spin doctor for villa mate.

Lighten up and appreciate what we've achieved.

Reality v Bluenose supporter basher.

I'm obviously Relating to this season not seasons gone by..

And Im not concerned what other clubs are doing or have done, Its Blues that concern me not Wigan Or say Bolton (other clubs)..

Kro.
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ringo182
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Geoff Horsfield
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bluenosekev
Aug 7 2010, 05:34 AM
alfred E nueman
Aug 6 2010, 06:46 PM
bluenosekev
Aug 6 2010, 04:47 PM
Well if we stand still performance and points wise from since January this year then we are doomed..

Standing still so far in 2010 would not be classed as a success..

Standing still in 2010 would = relegation.

Kro.

Gordon Bennet.

Reality v Blues Bashing.


Jan 2nd we were 7th

Jan 30th = 8th

Feb 27th = 8th

March 27th = 9th

End of Season = 9th.

There are 19 other clubs in this division and whilst our form was worse in the second half, so was a lot of other clubs - that is natural.

You seem like a spin doctor for villa mate.

Lighten up and appreciate what we've achieved.

Reality v Bluenose supporter basher.

I'm obviously Relating to this season not seasons gone by..

And Im not concerned what other clubs are doing or have done, Its Blues that concern me not Wigan Or say Bolton (other clubs)..

Kro.

he's not bashing you as a supporter, just as being always overly negative.

yes blues had a poor run in, but we only dropped 2 places. hardly relegation form is it?

look at burnley. they were in a similar position and they really did have a bad run.

we only had a dissapointing run in because of the success we had early in the season. i'm sure any of the bottom few teams would have loved the form we had in the second half of the season.
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