Pre Season Friendly
at St. Andrew's Stadium
Birmingham City (0) 0
Brighton & Hove Albion (2) 4
Glenn Murray 8
Jurgen Locadia 18
Shane Duffy 73, 90
Attendance: 4,846 inc. 272 away
THE66POW Cut & paste photo gallery: Click HERE
I arrived at my destination twenty minutes before kick off, completely soaked through to the skin, after walking (very briskly) up to the ground, having arrived in Birmingham on a late running train service. Mind you, at least the train to New Street was running, after a fashion, but the one that I'd booked to go home on, and the next one, were both cancelled.
A new dawn is rising over yonder horizon, as regards the start of yet another new football season... but whatever joys and sorrows the forthcoming campaign might bring for us all, one thing will remain constant and unchanged for all eternity: Saturday train services, always were, and always will be... shit!
The platform lottery game, whereby the attendant and vastly harangued station staff in situ, the overhead information screens and public address announcements all offer conflicting information, to abash, confuse and annoy the travelling public, is quite character building, but gets a bit tedious after the first couple of hundred times... and the I won the I-Spy competition against the three generations of my family who were present with me in the Second City this afternoon (which evolved into both evening and night before we actually left the rail terminus), because none of them could decipher my NFT acronym... the answer that evaded their collective IQ, was: No Train, obviously!
New Street Station offers an aesthetically lovely, bright and spotlessly clean, modern and pleasant environment and no doubt has had loads of architectural awards bestowed upon it since it's modernisation.
But downstairs, when you leave ground level and and descend to where all the trains actually are, it is as though you have just entered the bowels of hell itself. It's a stark contrast... and not a very nice place to have to kill a couple of hours.
But hey! It's worth all of the inconvenience, for an couple of hours at the football, isn't it!? Hell yeah! Well sometimes, maybe.
A new dawn is rising over yonder horizon, as regards the start of yet another new football season... but whatever joys and sorrows the forthcoming campaign might bring for us all, one thing will remain constant and unchanged for all eternity: Saturday train services, always were, and always will be... shit!
But downstairs, when you leave ground level and and descend to where all the trains actually are, it is as though you have just entered the bowels of hell itself. It's a stark contrast... and not a very nice place to have to kill a couple of hours.
But hey! It's worth all of the inconvenience, for an couple of hours at the football, isn't it!? Hell yeah! Well sometimes, maybe.
This blog is predominately about football. and I'm loathe to touch on politics or internal club wrangles (or speculation) with a barge pole, unless I'm left with no other choice to stand one corner or another. So, as a brisk resume and for purposes of brevity; since the last term, this is what Birmingham City got up to in their fairly eventful Summer holiday:
Garry Monk isn't the manager at St. Andrew's anymore. He'd done an excellent job, combining both the first team job and a whole load of community/supporter relations efforts... but he was dismissed. I'd like to say I was shocked when Monk got the sack, but nothing completely shocks, nor barely even surprises me anymore, when it comes to the turnover of people and jobs in football.
Pep Clotet, Monk's long term assistant (at several clubs, including Blues) is now the head coach, and his assistant will be Paco Herrera. And Xavi Calm, is the new Under 23's coach.
Blues captain: Michael Morrison has left the club after contract talks broke down, and he is now a Reading player. Subsequently, Harlee Dean is the new club captain.
Top scorer Che Adams, left Birmingham, to join Premier League club Southampton, in a big money move. It was always on the cards that Adams would be going, and he had already stayed a year longer than anyone had anticipated, while never giving anything less than 100% ,during his prolonged service to Blues.
Jota was transferred to Aston Villa. On his day, the player was a big influence in games, but, to that end, he didn't put a shift in consistently enough, and was often far too hit and miss. You frequently got the impression that Blues weren't seeing the best of Jota.. and a move away, recouping the outlay that Birmingham had initially spent on him, is probably best all round, for both the player and the club.
Gary Gardner's season long loan from Aston Villa, has become a permanent deal, while former Arsenal youngster Dan Cowley (signed after impressing Arsene Wenger himself no less, at the age of just fifteen) arrived at St. Andrew's this week, following a two season stint in the Netherlands; along with Jake Clarke-Slater who comes in, highly recommended, on a season long loan arrangement, from Chelsea.
Croatian international, Ivan Sunjic, who signed on the dotted line for Blues yesterday, was introduced to the crowd before today's game, and should have international clearance in time to play at Brentford next weekend, while Agustine Medina (from Celta Viga), will officially be joining the club on Monday. Other potential signings are, as of yet, pending, but being kept under wraps.
Solihull born Graham Potter, the Seagulls manager, will no doubt be happy about the performance his team put in, on his homecoming, to the ground where his professional career began, back in 1992.
Blues, who had been unbeaten throughout pre-season, until today, created several half chances during the opening exchanges... and fed the ball spent a lot of time in the visitors area, mainly via Kristian Pedersen, venturing forward down the left flank and putting in a good supply of crosses. Lukas Jutkiewicz, who recently extended his contracr until 2022, went deep to make himself two shooting opportunities, both from outside the area, one of which crashed against Matt Ryan's crossbar.
But despite Blues lively start, Glenn Murray opened the scoring in the eighth minute to put the visitors ahead, after Jurgen Locadia's angled pass, took a deflection off of Clarke-Slater and fell kindly into the Albion number seventeen's path and he planted the ball past the Birmingham keeper, David Stockdale.
Stockdale only played a combined total of seven league games last season, all while out on loan, spread between: Southend United, Wycombe Wanderers and Coventry City, after Garry Monk had bombed him out of all first team duties completely for a whole season.
When Wycombe wanted to extend his loan period there, they were refused, rather curiously... and Birmingham recalled him.
The keeper joined Blues from today's opponents in 2017, after being a part of their promotion winning team, from the Championship, to the Premier League.
If the former England C keeper (he's also been called up to the full international squad, but never actually won a cap), should ever decide to write his memoirs, I would imagine that there would be a few interesting stories to tell... and records to put straight.
Leandro Trossard intercepted a stray kick from the aforementioned keeper, exchanged passes with Murray and then fed the ball forward to Locadia, who had the time and space to take the ball sideways a couple of strides across Blues area, before hitting a shot on the turn, that ended up in the bottom corner of the net.
To be truthful, Locadia had enough time and space to execute a three point turn in a fully laden oil tanker, but hey ho! It's only pre-season, so no harm done... and besides it's a whole week until the Championship fixtures start again for real.
Danny Crowley looks to be an excellent acquisition for Blues and in spite of his diminutive stature, was head and shoulders above any other contender, when it came to selecting a man of the match.
He displayed a great range of flicks, tricks and dribbling skills, looked tenacious in the tackle, chased the ball down to break down opposition moves and used the ball well when looking for teammates.
Just after half time, Gary Gardner headed the ball against the Brighton bar from a Crowley corner out on the right... but as the game moved on, the visitors were comfortably playing the clock down, in a professional, but almost pedestrian manner.
Martin Montoya dispossessed Pedersen and almost scored a spectacular third goal for the visitors, but his dipping shot bounced down off of the crossbar and landed on the safe(ish) side of the goal-line.
But Brighton did score again, in the seventy first minute, when Shane Duffy's powerful downward header, from Trossard's delivery, was well saved by Stockdale, but Duffy forced the ball over the line with his second touch from the rebound, as he collided heavily with the right hand upright.
Evidently, Duffy is made of stern stuff, because he was soon back on his feet, while the goalpost seemed to have come second in that particular contest.
Duffy was obviously unfazed and not even slightly concussed, when he rose like a salmon, towering above the hosts defence, to head home Brighton's fourth, from another Trossard cross, moments before the final whistle.
FT: Birmingham City 0 v Brighton & Hove Albion 4
The new starters for Blues looked good and full of promise for the season ahead, but there's no disputing the fact that Birmingham were well beaten by their Premier League visitors today.
