' BIRMINGHAM CITY'S VIEW OF LAST NIGHTS GAME '

Winning ugly is still winning – Cardiff Reflections

Birmingham Fanzine

Saturday 19th Dec 2015

Birmingham City recorded their first victory at home for two months with a slightly fortuitous 1-0 win over Cardiff City thanks to a Paul Caddis penalty.


I’m going to make a confession here. I left the ground last night feeling a little bit frustrated because I didn’t think Blues had deserved the three points and I didn’t think that we had played that well; coupled with my loathing of the whole “Mad Friday” thing I could have written a somewhat angsty and scathing match report. However, on hearing this morning that the old gentleman I saw carried out of the Main Stand during the game had died I realised that I personally need some perspective; football is just a game and Christmas is just a day. There is no point feeling angst over either.

Rowett confirmed in the post-match interview on the pitch that Blues were lucky to get the penalty they did; the ball hit Matt Connolly square in the face rather than his outstretched hand and as such the ref didn’t make the right decision. However, Blues were denied probably at least one penalty when both Shane Lowry and Michael Morrison were bundled over in the box at a corner and so I think it kinda evens out.

It was a tough debut for Lowry; called into the team cos of injury to Jonathan Grounds he struggled somewhat up against Sammy Ameobi and I think his performance may have given Blues fans a little food for thought on the qualities Grounds brings to the team. There have been rumours Blues are looking at a left-back on forums with Danny Fox’s name mentioned – I haven’t heard anything myself but I wouldn’t be surprised if Blues did bring someone in as I think Mitch Hancox’s career with Blues is pretty much done and it seems evident Lowry just isn’t good enough.

James Vaughan looked fairly sprightly in attack and although he has yet to break his duck I thought he offered Blues a good outlet. Both Gray and Maghoma supported him manfully and although Toral struggled a bit I thought Blues offered much more going forwards than they did against Huddersfield. Gleeson and Kieftenbeld had much better games in the middle and while Blues might have been lucky to win they certainly didn’t deserve to lose.

If Wes Thomas and Lee Novak truly have been frozen out of Rowett’s plans then I’d like to see us take on James Vaughan permanently; when fit he looks to have the sort of quality we need and I think his family connections mean he has extra incentive to play well for us. It does seem that Nicolai Brock-Madsen is going to struggle to make the grade however; he’s slipped out of the picture somewhat with Greg Halford preferred to him up front late on against Preston and I hope that Blues could maybe bring in another striker to allow the Dane a loan spell getting first team action in League One to acclimatise him further to the game.

It was a good three points to win last night and while Blues are just out of the playoff picture at the moment there is plenty of time to make the charge for the top six. If Blues are to do that they will need to grind out the ugly wins and last night proved that they can – there is reason to be positive.