Derby County 1 v Birmingham City 1 - EFL Championship

Saturday 23rd September 2017

SkyBet EFLChampionship

at Pride Park

Derby County (0) 1

Sam Winnall 64

Birmingham City (0) 1

Lukas Jutkiewicz 61

Attendance: 27,932 (3,122 away supporters) 

Derby County:
Carson, Baird, Keogh (C), Davies, Olsson; Huddlestone, Johnson; Lawrence, Vydra (Winnall, 67), Weimann (Bennett, 67); Nugent (Martin, 63)
Unused subs - Mitchell, Wisdom, Pearce, Bennett, Ledley
Birmingham City:
Kuszczak, Nsue, Colin, Gardner, Dean, N’doye, Gallagher (Jutkiewicz, 63), Maghoma. Boga (Vassell, 63), Davis, Morrison (C)
Unused subs - Grounds, Roberts, Cotterill, Trueman, Gleeson

Were Birmingham City a bit too too hasty in sacking Harry Redknapp? 

Well, they ruminated far too long over off loading Gianfranco Zola last season, and almost paid the price for stubbornly delaying that decision until it was very nearly too late. 

Oh, but I was forgetting... Zola officially resigned, didn't he? 

The relegation that he almost 'masterminded' would've look bad on his CV I suppose, so it was perfectly understandable that he would want to leave the mess he had created behind, before it left an indelible stain on his record.. 

Following Zola's departure, Mr Redknapp came in for the final three games of the season and Blues lost the first one of them at Aston Villa and then took six points from their final two games, ultimately saving themselves from the drop with a scrappy and very nervy 1-0 win at Ashton Gate, against Bristol City, on the final day of the season, after beating Huddersfield Town 2-0 at St. Andrew's the previous weekend.

Our 'Arry' was bestowed the title of club saviour on the strength of those two wins. Good for him.

But, that was then, this is now... and six straight defeats in all competitions prior to today, as seen City plummet to the wrong end of the table at the outset of the current term, which was meant to be a new era for the club, and apparently full of promise... at what point should the decision makers step in to take evasive action before history repeats itself, do you reckon? 

How long do you let these things slide before addressing the situation?

Given Redknapp's track record, contacts and experience, he could and possibly should've been afforded a little more time to turn things around, but football is full of ifs, buts and maybes.

And despite his (very) late in the day, decent smash and grab raid, in the latter stages of the recent transfer window, with a string of deals that could all be considered as good business for Birmingham.... I don't believe I was the only person who heard the alarm bells sounding, when he was seriously contemplating bringing in the likes of Ashley Cole, Robbie Keane and even, shock, horror: John bleedin' Terry, to St. Andrew's.

To what end!? Because those particular signings certainly wouldn't be for the long term good of City, or any other team for that matter... it smacked of a jobs for the boys arrangement, for the short term gain of a bunch of former star players who have all seen better days, as they stood to pick up a tidy sum towards their pension pot, at the twilight end of their respective and impressive careers.

Moving swiftly on... the mathematical scenario for today's visitors was: if Bolton Wanderers won their home game against fellow strugglers Brentford and Blues, under the stewardship of caretaker manager Lee Carsley, hadn't picked up a point at Pride Park, then they would've slipped to the foot of the table. 

That's right, the very bottom of the pile!

Desperate times call for ruthless decisions, which have to be taken without any room for sentiment, while any benefit of the doubt based on a failing manager's past achievements, must be cast aside.

As things turned out, Brentford stuffed the Trotters 3-0 at what is now called the Macron Stadium, while Derby and Birmingham both had to settle for a point apiece from this close run, nip and tuck encounter.

What a load of rubbish! What a load of rubbish!

Although we're all only nine games into the current campaign (following this afternoon's round of games), Blues already have a ten point gap to make upon the teams on the periphery of the play off places and fifteen on the three teams in the top three, namely: Leeds United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Cardiff City. 

Unfortunately, the manager-less Blues, are already hampered by their slow start of only having won one game out of their first nine, so might I suggest, ever so politely, that if it wasn't such a big name manager they were offloading, then this'drastic action' was actually a no brainer of a decision, that wouldn't even have been bought into question, if their wasn't an element of a celebrity figure chucked into the mix.

Even though it was odd, to say the least, that the club owners backed their man financially in his recent transfer dealings, just before they almost immediately relieved him of his post within days, football, when all is said and done, is a results based industry... and the 'chirpy' Mr Redknapp hasn't exactly been ripping up any trees this term.

To think, he was touted as being the next England manager not so many moons ago, but almost exclusively by himself and that cringe-worthy newspaper that he wrote a column for.

The Rams fans were evidently anticipating a better start to the season than they have actually been enjoying too and were fairly subdued throughout the first half, while the 3.122 visiting support made their own entertainment, signing their ruddy heads off in the corner of the South Stand.

Both of today's managers, that's Gary Rowett in the white corner and Lee Carsley in blue, have actually served both of today's teams with distinction as players in the past, and of course, Rowett has also managed both too... as well as doing media work covering these two respective sides in their home cities.

"I hope that you're going to touch on how badly Gary was treated when Blues got rid of him in your report", insisted a Birmingham supporting young lady, whom I was enjoying lunch with... that is to say, we were sat on the steps behind the North stand, making good use of the Chip van that was parked up there, discussing how we thought the game would pan out while we waited for her husband to turn up (for the record, the food was superb, 10 out of 10, you must try it for yourself sometime).

But the Gary Rowett and Birmingham City saga has already had loads of mileage, including way too many column inches on this very blog in the past. 

The pneumatic tyre, the electric light bulb, gramophone records and t'internet have all been invented since then. 

Meanwhile, Mr Rowett has moved on and got on with his life during the interim, perhaps everybody else should too. I wish him every success at Derby County, he's a really nice guy.

With the teams already out on the pitch, ready to start the game, an elderly gentleman stopped on the stairs behind me, he was obviously struggling with the steep ascent and sweating profusely. I gave up my seat and gave him the bottle of water I had just purchased... and I would hope that any single one of you would've done the same.

I stayed with him for a while to check that he was OK then swapped tickets and moved further up the stairs, to check out the altitude and rarefied air just below the tin roof, telling him that I would be contacting Mel Morris (the Rams chairman) about getting some escalators fitted. My new found friend retorted: "Well you better do it bloomin' quick then, because he won't want to spend much once we're on a League 1 budget next season"

Even in his hour of need, this exhausted gentleman could still find a space in his heart to worry about someone who was apparently worse off than himself. 

What a kind and public spirited old chap.

I could skip past the first hour of the game (and actually will), until a rack of substitutions from both sides lit the blue touch paper, because prior to that... and especially during the first half, it seemed as if the two managers were already content with a draw and had made a pact to abandon using the flanks and indulge in a scrappy display of frantically kicking the ball backwards and forwards along a forty yard strip in the middle of the pitch.
An average display of really average averagness, between two very average teams, who were too average to do very much more than look decidedly, averagely, average.
The law of averages said that the second half had to be better entertainment wise, but I think that deep down, everybody connected to either side would've content with a draw at the interval.
For the record, I had a quick look at each team's coverage of the game so far and they were both claiming to have had the better of the first half, but unless I had actually nodded off and missed a chunk of the opening forty five minutes, a draw thus far was a fair result, in particular a goalless one.
HT: Rams 0 v Blues 0

The gentleman who I had swapped seats with, was getting to his feet as I headed downstairs for a half time coffee, so I asked him if I could help him out with anything, to save him from having to navigate the stairs again.
He was very grateful, but turned down my offer of help and smiled: "Not unless you're going to have a piss for me!"
Some other time pal!
Richard Keogh was getting forward well from his defensive berth for the home side and proving to be the Rams best outlet for passes into the Blues last third.
While Michael Morrison was working hard to try getting Blues going, with several useful touches... it is mall wonder that they are both captains.

Inside the space of four second half minutes, five substitutes were introduced, two for Blues and three for the Rams and the complexion of this not entirely spectacular game changed immediately. Hoorah!
Lukas Jutkiewicz opened the scoring for the visitors, when he provided the finishing touch to Craig Gardner's delivery.
But, before the blue wisps of smoke had cleared fromin front of the celebrating Brummies, Derby were back on level terms when Sam Winnall netted from Keogh's header across the face of Tomas Kuszczak's goal.
Both scorers had found the net with their very first touches... in fact it was Winnall's first ever goal for County ever.
Two other substitutes Mason Bennett (Rams) and Isaac Vassell (Blues) both went close as both teams changed their strategy and went in search of win, but 1-1 was how it stayed.

Derby now travel to Brentford in midweek, and will be hoping that they can start to claw themselves up the table and away from the mid table mediocrity and (dare I say it) averageness of their campaign so far on Tuesday night, while Birmingham City entertain Sheffield Wednesday at St. Andrew's on Wednesday night, as the Championship fixtures start to pile up at an unrelenting rate.
The Rams travel to Cardiff City on Saturday, while Birmingham head in the opposite direction to Hull City.
FT: Derby County 1 v Birmingham City 1
A fair result? Definitely.
A classic game of football? Definitely not!
'Twas average... and very much so!!
As alluded to further up this page... football is a results based industry and picking up the odd point here and there, when you haven't played particularly well, bodes well for the longer term. 

During my brief walk back to my car, that was strategically positioned to escape from Derby via the A52/M1 (North) corridor, I took a call from a friend who said that he had a spare ticket for tomorrow's Sheffield Wednesday v Sheffield United game in the away end and that I could have for face value if I wanted it.

Alas, £42 to watch a Championship game from behind one of the goals, is nothing short of scandalous. I thought the Football League were supposed to be monitoring and clamping down on such extortion and daylight robbery. I declined.

Shame on you Sheffield Wednesday FC.