SkyBet EFL Championship
at St. Andrew's Stadium
Birmingham City (0) 0
Queens Park Rangers (1) 2
Grant Hall 45+1
Bright Osayi-Samuel 68
Attendance: 18,161
Prior to kick-off, a period of applause was observed, in memory of the two former Birmingham managers: Ron Saunders and Jim Smith, who both sadly passed away this week. Smith, of course, also managed tonight's visitors: QPR too.
The home side was chopped and changed for this Wednesday night fixture, because of several key players currently being unavailable through injury. And without wanting to cast aspersions on any of the squad members who were drafted in... it showed at times, on what was a bad night at the office for Blues.
Mark Warburton's Rangers netted a scrappy goal in stoppage time, of a very (s)crappy first-half when Blues had struggled to clear a long delivery into their area, that glanced off of the head of Harlee Dean, who collided with Kristian Pedersen, to play a scrummage of visiting players onside, as he and Wes Harding struggled to protect Connal Trueman.
Prior to taking the lead, QPR had offered very little going forward, while Jeremie Bela and Jude Bellingham had been instrumental in chipping away at the fringes of the hoops rearguard, where eight half chances had gone begging for the hosts.
Bela was replaced a few minutes into the second half (which was something of a surprise) as was Alvaro Giminez (which probably wasn't on the night), as Pep Clotet made a tactical switch, sending on Lukas Jutkewicz and Odin Gailey, suggesting that Blues might be going more direct, with young Bailey feeding off of Jutkiewicz's flick-ons, though that shift in the game-plan didn't actually materialise, as Blues continued to keep the ball on the deck instead of adopting a horses for courses strategy. And besides, Rangers weren't in the mood for conceding much ground to that end anyway.
Jefferson Montero was also introduced just after the hour, to bolster Birmingham's fire-power, but within moments of the Ecuadorian international entering the fray, Bright Osayi-Samuel got free on the left for Rangers and charged towards the home side's area, leaving Maxime Colin in his slip-stream, before unleashing an unstoppable strike past Trueman into the roof of the net, to double the west London side's lead.
Montero, for his part, made put in few powerful runs on the left, but the string of crosses he delivered were all fairly easily dealt with by the QPR defence, who weren't troubled unduly for the majority of the second half, in spite of the stats saying that Blues had another eight attempts on goal, after the break too.
To be honest, I have no recollection of there having been quite that many.
Jutkiewicz had two half-chances towards the end of the game, but it was just not happening for Blues tonight in front of the visitor's goal and I don't think that they would've scored if the game had dragged on until after midnight.
FT: Birmingham City 0 v Queens Park Rangers 2
Rangers worked hard at closing any creative intentions Birmingham might've had tonight down and deserved this win, with what was a typical away performance.
Alas, Blues only had two goal-scoring opportunities on target all night... they'll have to do much better than that against the joint Championship leaders West Bromwich Albion who visit St. Andrew's at the weekend (12.30PM).
Rangers worked hard at closing any creative intentions Birmingham might've had tonight down and deserved this win, with what was a typical away performance.
Meanwhile, QPR will be looking for their third win in a row, when they travel to Oakwell, to take on Barnsley, later the same afternoon.
