Birmingham City 2 v Luton Town 1 - EFL Championship

Saturday 26th October 2019
SkyBet EFL Championship
at St. Andrew's Stadium
Birmingham City (1) 2
Kristian Pedersen 45+3, Lukas Jutkiewicz 82
Luton Town (0) 1
Harry Cornick 67
Attendance: 21,799 (inc. 2,676 away fans)
Point & hope match photos: click HERE

Birmingham City:
Lee Camp, Kristian Pedersen, Marc Roberts, Maxime Colin, Dan Crowley (Jacques Maghoma 87), Lukas Jutkiewicz, Harlee Dean, Fran Villalba, Kerim Mrabti (Alvaro Gimenez 77), Jude Bellingham (David Davis 87), Ivan Sunjic
Unused subs: Connal Trueman, Wes Harding, Jake Clarke-Salter, Odin Bailey
Luton Town:
James Shea, Martin Cranie, Dan Potts, Ryan Tunnicliffe (Harry Cornick 66), Sonny Bradley, Matt Pearson, Callum McManaman (James Collins 59), Pelly-Ruddock Mpanzu, Luke Bolton (Jacob Butterfield 87), Izzy Brown, Kazenga Lualua
Unused subs: Simon Sluga, Andrew Shinnie, James Bree, Lloyd Jones

Blues beat Blackburn Rovers 1-0 on Tuesday night, courtesy of Maxime Colin's first half headed goal, following a great passage of build up play, that bordered on a Championship level variation of Holland's 'Total Football', from back in the 1970's.
It's great to watch, but I'm strongly of the opinion, that although aesthetics are very admirable, they still need reinforcing with a liberal dose of 'no phucking about' in front of the opposition's goal. Professional football is both an entertainment and results based industry, and if a team is to be successful, you can't have the former without the latter.

That's merely an observation by the way, and certainly not a criticism of the kind of quick tempo passing game-plan, that Blues are trying to implement, bolstered by their recent high calibre signings, such as: Danny Crowley (who was outstanding today), Fran Villalba and (in particular) Ivan Sunjic, who at twenty three years old, is the senior member of that triumvirate. It's a pleasure to bear witness to the kind of football that this Blues side is adopting and developing.
The question's been raised, as to whether Che Adams returning to the club on loan from Southampton, in the January transfer window, might be a possible solution to Blues lack of goal-scoring prowess, as they continue to confound people by failing to turn their impressive and top-heavy possession statistics into goals.

Personally, I don't think that offering Adams a lifeline to get his form/career back on track, following his slow start to his career at St. Mary's, is the answer.
By and large, as great a striker as he might have been for Blues, although there was obviously far more to his game, he often fed off of Jutkiewicz's flick on's from direct balls forward to great effect.
Blues aren't playing that sort of football anymore, they're looking forward, not back. And they would have to amend the way that they play, to accommodate Adams. Jutkiewicz has been having a fallow spell in front of goal, but he was back on target today, keeping his focus following a horrific miss, so I reckon, that you'll be seeing his name on the score-sheet again, any time soon.
Mind you, if Southampton want to sell Adams back to Birmingham for a knockdown price at the end of the season, That would be a different matter entirely.

Elsewhere this week, Luton travelled to Fulham on Wednesday night and headed home empty handed, having lost 3-2 at Craven Cottage.
The aforementioned midweek results, meant that Birmingham started this afternoon in eleventh place in the ever evolving chameleon and flux like mass, that is the Championship table, while the Hatters arrived at St. Andrew's, five points behind Pep Clotet's side, in eighteenth.
To illustrate the ever changing nature of the beast, Blues win over the Hatters, saw them stay in eleventh place, but they're now just a solitary point away from a play off berth and five points behind the league leaders: West Bromwich Albion, who themselves, drew 2-2 at home to Charlton Athletic today, after the Addicks scored a penalty in the 94th minute.

Luton's manager: Graeme Jones, claimed, prior to this afternoon's deserved win for Pep Clotet's Blues, that "little clubs like Luton and Charlton" had been disadvantaged by the EFL, because they had played on Wednesday night and had a days less recovery than the teams who played on Tuesday.
Heaven forbid any Championship side should ever have to play two games in four days, eh!? Y'know, pretty much like every team who plays on a Tuesday following a Saturday game... in actual fact, Blues played two midweek games themselves two weeks ago, because of live TV commitments: Tuesday 1st October v Wigan Athletic (A), just four days after they had travelled to Leeds United, and Friday 4th October v Middlesbrough.

He then went on to say, in the aftermath of defeat, that his team had been in the ascendancy and there only looked likely to be one winner... them! After Harry Cornick had equalised for the Hatters, when Izzy Brown pounced on a slip by Kristian Pedersen, before sending Cornick racing forward to crash the ball into the net via the underside of the crossbar, to claim his fifth goal of the season..
Blues disallowed goal (post match analysis proved that Crowley wasn't offside when he'd crossed to Jutkiewicz, after all), missed sitters and a string of other curious, almost laissez-faire refereeing decisions that went against Birmingham, as they passed his team off of the park, suggests otherwise. As does the fact that the Hatters keeper: James Shea, was the visitors man of the match, having pulled off a string of great saves to keep the hosts at bay, while showing the kind of agility that Peter Parker would've been proud of.

And let's take the unpunished, quite blatant trip, on Danny Crowley, inside Luton's penalty area, right at the start of the second half too, shall we, as even more evidence that the Hatters manager was talking rubbish, stacked up against him.
If Jones thinks that the EFL have been doing Birmingham City any favours, then he's seriously out of touch with recent events. But rather than concerning himself with such matters, he'd be better off addressing the chinks in his own teams armour, that Blues exploited with their slick passing game, for the majority of the afternoon.
And, for the record, regardless of what kind of status he wants to bestow upon Luton; Charlton Athletic aren't a little club.
Mr Jones... might I politely suggest, that you shurrup! Before you make yourself look even dafter than you already do.

This was the first meeting between these two sides since December 2006, when a stoppage time goal by Neil Danns, salvaged a 2-2 draw for Blues, in front of a crowd of 24,642, during a campaign that ultimately saw them finish in second place, two points behind champions Sunderland, while gaining automatic promotion into the Premier League.
Luton, for their part, were relegated at the end of that season, along with Leeds United and Southend United. And it;s been a long, long, very circuitous road back, to the second tier of English football, for the Bedfordshire side.

In actual fact, by the time that they started the 2009-10 season, the Hatters had fallen even further down football's pyramid and were plying their trade in non-league football, but regained their League 2 status in 2014. And having won back to back promotions for the last two seasons, which included picking up the League 1 title along the way last term, they're now adjusting to life in the Championship again, where, as Pep Clotet noted prior to this game, Graeme Jones' team had scored more goals than any other outside the top seven.

I could list the details of all Blues attempts on goal this afternoon, but this blog is painstakingly laborious enough already, without me recycling the salient points pertaining to all 21 (twenty one) of them. You'll just have to take my word for it, that if you weren't at St. Andrew's on Saturday, you missed a very dominant Blues display... and frankly, that's you're own fault, there were seats available and not all of them were out in the bucketing rain... like mine!

Suffice to say, but for Shea and his 'spidey-senses', the game would've been as good as over inside the opening twelve minutes... and it bordered on insanity, that it was still goalless going into half time, until Kristian Pedersen headed a stoppage time opening goal from Maxime Colin's 'dink' across the face of Luton's goal.

Jutkiewicz donned his 'Mister Sitter' disguise as the second half commenced, with Kerim Mrabti forcing his way to the dead ball line, in spite of the close attentions of two defenders, before cutting the ball back over Shea who had raced towards him and putting a gilt edged chance on plate for Blues number ten, who was sliding in, right in front of the unguarded visitors goal... but somehow, the chance went begging.

It speaks volumes for the Blues striker, that even though he hasn't scored for a while now,  after spurning such a great opportunity, he kept his concentration and application levels high, while that wily Clotet bloke kept his faith in the player, because, cometh the hour (well, the eighty second minute), cometh the man mountain... and though Luton had been presented with (and taken) the chance to pull the score level, with the aforementioned Cornick strike, against the run of play, it was Jutkiewicz who reclaimed Blues lead, nodding home Harlee Dean's downward header from Villalba's corner kick.

And, to paraphrase Graeme Jones: there was only ever going to be one winner now... pretty much like there ever was from 3PM onward if truth be told.

But hey! Don't go letting that there truth stuff get in the way of a half-baked conspiracy theory, when a frustrated manager of a losing football team, gets a microphone pushed in front of his face and is asked for an on the spot overview of how the match went, in the aftermath of a thoroughly warranted defeat.

Blues beat Luton 2-1, scoring two goals from close range, while the visitors scored with a sublimely struck shot by Cornick, which on the face of it, sounds fairly unspectacular and unremarkable, but in reality, the pass and move, flicks and tricks, and mesmerising dribbling that made up this Blues performance, was actually quite awe-inspiring. And surely, if they keep creating the amount of chances that they did today, Birmingham City are on the verge of giving somebody a proper good hiding, especially now that the hard working Jutkiewicz, has found his scoring touch again.

There's a good vibe building around St. Andrew's at the moment, in response the vibrant football being played by Pep Clotet's side. It hasn't happened overnight and there are still a few rough edges that need smoothing over, and it's fair to say that they're not the finished article... yet. But, the main thing appears to be, that everybody at the club, including the supporters, is buying into the new way of doing things, and reading from the same hymn sheet There will inevitably be plenty of  joys and sorrows along the way, but that way appears to be onward and upwards.

Are Blues ready for a play off or promotion push? Only time will tell... and to be honest, it would be unfair to let the growing optimism levels become expectations, for a while yet.

 

But either way, they're making progress, getting results and it's bloody good fun to watch too, even with the occasional nerve-jangling drama chucked in.

FT: Birmingham City 2 v Luton Town 1

After the game, I was asked to pick out one singular factor, that has been pivotal to several eye-catching Blues performances of late... and though there are many plusses that I could pinpoint with equal measure, I've been particularly impressed by the way that Mazime Colin and Dan Crowley's link up play is developing on the right. Colin wasn't ever really given that amount of opportunity and freedom, when his talents weren't fully utilised last season, with Jota as his conduit for creativity.

The current playing style and the input of Crowley (along with Villaba and Sunjic) has helped Colin to throw away his shackles and he's revelling in his more flexible role down the right flank now. I won't back this up with stats, because I don't need to. He scored on Saturday and created a goal for Pedersen today. Fill the rest in y'selves!

Blues travel to Cardiff City next Saturday, with another sold-out away following (including the extra tickets that they requested) in tow... while Luton are in action at Kenilworth Road against Nottingham Forest, who's game v Reading today was postponed, because their City Ground pitch was waterlogged. Which means they'll get almost two weeks rest before playing the Hatters. 

Hmm... we better not let Graeme Jones find out about Sabri Lamouchi's side, being given such an unfair leg up, against his disadvantaged team.