Birmingham City 0 v Fulham 1 - EFL Championship

Saturday 9th November 2019
SkyBet EFL Championship
at St. Andrew's Stadium
Birmingham City (0) 0
Fulham (0) 1
Aleksandar Mitrovic 52
Attendance: 21,334 (inc. 1,505 away fans)

Birmingham City:
Camp, Colin, Roberts, Clarke-Salter, Pederson; Crowley (Gimenez 62), Bellingham, Sunjic, Villalba (Montero 79); Mrabti (Bela 61), Jutkiewicz (C)
Unused subs - Harding, Davis, Maghoma, Trueman (GK)
Fulham:
Rodak, Odoi, Mawson, Ream, Le Marchand (Christie 34); Johansen, Reed, Knockaert; Decordova-Reid (Kamara 81), Mitrovic (C), Cavaleiro (Onomah 65)
Unused subs - McDonald, Kebano, De La Torre, Bettinelli (GK)

WE SHALL REMEMBER THEM

We were warned in advance, that owing to flooding across the rail network, there would be numerous train delays and cancellations en route to Birmingham today.
Myself and thousands of other regular Saturday travellers, merely shrugged our shoulders at this not entirely unexpected news... such disruption is par for the course on any given weekend, regardless of the weather. Kudos and respect is due to the on the ground staff, who have worked around the clock to keep the trains moving, but the horse bolted a long time ago, as regards getting the right sort of people to run the franchises of the train operating companies in this country.

The last time that Fulham played at St. Andrew's, it was a joyous occasion for the Birmingham City faithful, when a 3-1 victory, on what was dubbed as 'Survival Sunday', saw Garry Monk's Blues side preserve their Championship status, while the visitors slipped out of the automatic promotion spots and into the play-offs, from where they won promotion by virtue of beating another west Midlands club in the final at Wembley.
The Cottagers began the afternoon in eighth position in the Championships, four places above Blues, but just a single point ahead of Pep Clotet's team... with both sides looking to put defeats last weekend behind them, after Blues went down 4-2 at Cardiff City and Fulham lost 0-3 against Hull City at Craven Cottage.

An eye-catching team rebuilding programme, continues to pick up pace at Birmingham City, who've made a massive statement of intent, by signing long term target, the French striker Jeremie Bela on a three-year deal, after he became a free agent, following a contract dispute with his previous club, Spanish side Albacete, who've subsequently released the player. Bela is the ninth signing made by Pep Clotet, since he was given the title of caretaker head-coach, back in June.

He joins Blues, to add even more firepower to the squad, following the arrival of the eight summer signings, namely: Croatian midfielder Ivan Sunjic, on-loan defender (from Chelsea) Jake Clarke-Salter, Spanish goalkeeper Moha Ramos, former England Under 19 international Dan Crowley, two more Spaniards: the striker Alvaro Gimenez and attacking midfielder Fran Villalba, Ecuadorian winger Jefferson Montero and the former Chelsea and Brentford midfielder Josh McEachran.

Some of these new  recruits are yet to make their presence felt on the first team stage at St. Andrew's; while those that have, have made a massive impact and are an integral part of the high tempo and aesthetically pleasing style of play that the team are currently adapting to.
As well as offering different options to the presently available (and reliable) talent pool already in situ, which includes a growing number of home-grown talents.
It is going to be interesting (and exciting) to see if Bela can add the extra proliferate edge, that Blues require inside the opposition goalmouth(s), to add the finishing touches to the new direction that the match day tactics have been taking of late, while sharing the extra workload and burden that the established players at the club have taken on board, as Blues look to move the season up a gear.

FIFA listed Jarred Gavan Gillett, who acted as today's match referee (and I mean acted in every context of the word), is a former A League official, of Antipodean origin, who was imported this year to take charge of EFL fixtures. Isn't it bad enough that their are already plenty of poor referees in the Championship, without flying even more of them in?

Surely there are plenty of competent British referee's rising up through the ranks who are more than capable of making the step up, instead of handing out the responsibility of  managing games in this country to yet another official, who is seemingly of the same ilk as several others who continue to ruin games in this division, with an often unfathomable lack of clarity and consistency, to a point that borders on them looking as if they have an agenda of sorts, whereby, never giving certain clubs the rub of the green, might just curry favour within officialdom of the EFL. 

There wouldn't be such a thing as football without the match officials... and I'm always one of the first to lavish praise on anyone who has handled a game really well.
But, by the same token, I could provide quite an extensive list of decisions that I've witnessed this season, that step well over the line, that are bordering on handicapping certain teams, by making unfavourable decisions to disadvantage them. As well as citing a whole load disproportionate punishments, handed out to un-favoured clubs, while others get away with similar 'indiscretions' altogether.
Birmingham City, do appear to be high on the victims list, though they're not alone in this respect (ask any Leeds United supporter about it too, for example), even though I'm quite sure that there would be strenuous denials that such a thing even exists, and find myself accused of having a blinkered and biased overview of the situation, to go with my Conspiracy Theorist t-shirt.

Essentially though, while today's win for Fulham, will go down as the fruits of an opportunist strike by Aleksandar Mitrovic, who ceased his opportunity to pounce when Lee Camp appeared to misjudge the flight of a cross from Cyrus Christie, and dropped the ball right at the feet of the Serbian striker, who turned and hooked the ball into the net from a yard out.
So ask yourself, what the effing hell was such a potent force as Mitrovic doing there, unguarded, in the first place? The answer is, he wasn't?

Marc Roberts had Camp's back covered, but the Fulham captained had quite clearly and blatantly pushed the Blues defender out of the way, and into the back of his keeper, to get into that hole in the first place. The next question is then: how didn't Mr Gillett and his assistants see what happened?
Mitrovic is a handful for any defence, and Pep Clotet had even gone so far as to earmark him as Fulham's main threat, in his pre-match press call.
But Blues caretaker head coach (as he is still known), probably hadn't reckoned on the Cottagers prolific hit-man being aided and abetted by the referee.

 

Of course, in the aftermath of defeat, numerous Birmingham supporters flooded onto social media to hang, draw, quarter and crucify Lee Camp for his error and pile loads of criticism and blame on the Northern Ireland keeper.
For sure, he should've held onto Christie's dipping cross, as the ball moved about in the wind and the rain, even though modern day coaching encourages keepers to punch modern lightweight balls away, But, Camp usually has defensive back up in such situations... and today, that belt and braces safety valve, had been tossed out the way.
I'm not suggesting for a moment that Blues deserved to win this game, because, in my humble opinion, they didn't... and ultimately they paid for not being able to force the issue in front of the visitors keeper Marek Rodak, especially in the first half when he thwarted Kristian Pedersen, Kerim Mrabti and Fran Villalba.

If you don't take your chances, then you're always running the risk of allowing the opposition to capitalise on any given opportunity to nick the lead, be it by fair means or foul.
So while people are queuing up to have a pop at Lee Camp, they might also like to consider that Blues also featured fourteen outfield players during the course of the afternoon, who collectively didn't manage to breach Fulham's rearguard.
And, as I might have already touched on earlier... the referee was a contributing factor in the home side's downfall too.
Of course, Fulham fans could counter that claim, by pointing out that Mitrovic had a goal ruled out for offside during the first half from Anthony Knockaert's right wing cross, but hey ho! Have a look at the replays on TV tonight... Mitrovic had the ball in the net twice, neither goal was legit, but he got away with one of them.

The statistics show, that Birmingham created more goal scoring opportunities than Fulham... they also illustrate that the visitors had considerably more possession of the ball, but everybody knows that there is only one sort of data analysis that counts for anything once the dust has settled... and that is the bloody great big banner headline at the top of this post that says: Birmingham City 0 v Fulham 1.
There is a school of thought, that Mitrovic shouldn't even still have been on the pitch when he scored, after he'd confronted Jude Bellingham in an off the ball incident just before half time, but to my way of thinking that was part of a big learning curve for the sixteen year old Blues player, who stood his ground and was completely unfazed by the whole saga... and was quite obviously not frightened in the slightest of the Fulham captain.

Knockaert shot over and Denis Odoi steered a shot wide of the post, as Fulham pushed forward in an attempt to double their lead, while Mitrovic, having lost control of the ball in the area, took a dive... the referee waved away the fatuous penalty appeals and saw the incident for what it was: assimilation... but failed to show the Cottagers forward a second yellow card.

Hmm, maybe I should get myself on eBay and look for one of those Conspiracy Theorist t-shirts after all.

Blues introduced Giminez, Bela and Montero into the action to try and force the issue and the latter showed good feet to set up a chance for Jutkiewicz, whose header was saved by Rudak at full stretch, moments after Giminez had headed wide from Villalba's cross.

Montero and Jutkiewicz combined again, but this time Alfie Mawason was on hand to make a last ditch block to deny Blues.
With time running out, Aboubakar Kamara got clear and advanced on the hosts goal, but Camp did well to get in the way of the incoming shot and deflected the ball against the post. I bet that doesn't get a mention later, when the critics turn up on t'internet (angry) mob handed tonight.
Footnote: I just checked after I got home... and as of yet, it still hasn't, just saying.
FT: Birmingham City 0 v Fulham 1

Apologies for not mentioning it before, but Jake Clarke-Salter did a great job at the back for Blues today, in the place of the suspended Harlee Dean, so credit where it's due, well played that man.

It's yet another international break for the Championship sides next Saturday. But the following weekend, Fulham face local rivals Queens Park Rangers in a Friday night fixture at Craven Cottage, while Blues travel up to Huddersfield Town the next day, for the first instalment of a Yorkshire double-header that continues a few days later when they have a Wednesday night game at Hillsborough, against that team who are currently managed by a certain Garry Monk.

A great balance of articles herein, and
 a recommended bloody good read too.

So then, it needs to be asked: Aleksandar Mitrovic, is he a decent footballer or not? 

A hero or a villain?

An opportunist with an eye for an opening, or a cumbersome, cheating shit-house?

To answer all of that, requires more than a few simple yes or no responses, but shall we just settle for: he's one of those players, who is a nightmare to come up against, whose physical approach will always mark him out as a hate figure for opposition fans. 

However, Mitrovic is also probably the first player that you would want on the team sheet, if he played for your own club of choice, instead of against them. Either way, he was the main difference between the two sides today, even though the hapless Jarred Gillett, ran him very close for the title role of 'Birmingham City's nemesis' this afternoon.

#FucktheEFL