Tuesday 15th March 2022
EFL Championship
Birmingham City (0) 0
Middlesbrough (1) 2
Nico Gordon 23 OG, Folarin Balogun 62
Attendance: 15,852
Birmingham City:
Neil Etheridge, Nico Gordon, Marc Roberts, Teden Mengi (Scott Hogan 33), Jordan Graham, Gary Gardner (C) (Juninho Bacuna 76), Ryan Woods, Taylor Richards (Tahith Chong 55), Kristian Pedersen, Onel Hernandez, Lukas Jutkiewicz.
Unused subs - Zach Jeacock, Maxime Colin, Jeremie Bela, Ivan Sunjic.
Middlesbrough:
Joe Lumley, Anfernee Dijksteel, Paddy McNair, Dael Fry, Isaiah Jones (Lee Peltier 88), Matt Crooks, Jonny Howson (C), Marcus Tavernier, Neil Taylor (Marc Bola 67), Folarin Balogun (Duncan Watmore 80), Aaron Connolly.
Unused subs - Luke Daniels, Sol Bamba, Caolan Boyd-Munce, Josh Coburn.
For the opening quarter of an hour or so, Blues set about Boro with the kind of relish and application that strongly suggested that they were on course to exorcise the demons of Saturday afternoon.
With just five minutes on the clock I commented to my sidekick: "Wow! They've already played more football tonight than they managed in the whole of ninety minutes against Hull".
Alas, the prematurely enthusiastic vibe was very short-lived and when Chris Wilder's visitors took the lead, very much against the run of play; when Anfernee Dijksteel raced into the Blues area on the right and planted a low cross towards Aaron Connolly, whose goal bound effort was pushed away by Neil Etheridge, but rebounded back off of Nico Gordon and ended up in the back of the net.
The effect was akin to a rug being pulled from beneath Birmingham's collective feet and they almost inevitably, they fell to pieces.
From then on in, there was only likely to be one winner at St. Andrew's tonight... and they had arrived on a coach from Teesside, via an afternoon nap in the Radisson Blu hotel. 
Right at the start of the second half, Taylor Richards tripped Isaiah Jones as he advanced on Blues goal... but Etheridge pulled of a great stop from Paddy McNair's resulting spot-kick and turned the ball against the post, averting the growing danger being posed by Boro... for now at least.
Just after the hour mark, Arsenal loanee Folarin Balogun made himself a yard of space just outside the the penalty area and bent an unstoppable shot beyond the reach of Etheridge to double the visitors lead.
Blues never even looked like salvaging anything out of the game after that and to compound matters they were then reduced to ten men inside the closing five minutes when Kristian Pedersen received a second yellow card of the night for blatantly pulling Jones' shirt as he advanced towards the hosts area.
FT: Blues 0 v Boro 2
Maybe if one of the string of chances that Birmingham had created early on had resulted in a goal, the game might have gone differently
I stayed back at full-time to watch the players leaving the pitch, not to heckle them and definitely not to applaud and heap undeserved praise on them, but to make sure it was still Lee Bowyer pulling the strings and that horrible Aitor Karanka character hadn't sneaked back into St. Andrew's, which would've explained the lacklustre and directionless tactics employed by the home side over the past few days.
Karankaball is the antithesis of total football.
In the aftermath of defeat Blues manager Lee Bowyer said:
"That wasn't good enough and I apologise.
"The one thing I demand from the players is that they give everything and they try. All over the pitch we were second best and that isn't acceptable.
"People need to grab opportunities. It's a short career.
"The players are all playing for their careers. It's been a problem at this club for years that people have been going through the motions."
Definitely, not Karanka then, he was never at fault or wrong about anything (in his own mind) and certainly never says sorry.
Ah well, another night of train disruption and loitering about on empty station platforms trying to get home before I start work in the morning ensues.
I hear told that these things are character building.
It makes me wonder if Karanka has found gainful employment as a rail operator and is tinkering with the schedules tonight, with his usual aplomb. Although, by rights, I can't really blame him for what's unfolded (or more to the point, hasn't unfolded) on the field of play at St. Andrew's over these past four days. Don't wait up, I might be a while yet.
