Oppo Forum: https://wewilljourneyon.proboards.com/board/3/blues-news It's official. Our recent manager has been given the Gino treatment after a dismal run of form, concluding in two consecutive home defeats to compound our abysmal home record. Despite playing well for half an hour, and having a referee about as clued up on fouling as Danny Rose is on diets, we slipped back into our old habits and deservedly lost the game due to a total lack of awareness at the crucial moment, to compound another rash choice from Mr. Hothead Bachmann before hand. Anyway, new manager in the hotseat, new beginnings? Not the unknown quality we are usually dealt, but a man well equated with the Watford fanbase having managed the U18's quite successfully in his first spell, our stalwart Tom Cleverley is given the role on a temp basis for now, and a position I very much doubt he expected to find himself in this season. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders, and his relationship with past current players like Sema, Dennis and Bachmann may or may or either hinder or help him as his "trial period" begins in earnest at St Andrews. We all hope for a positive result, and an encouraging start to his tenure. In the Hotseat: Tom Cleverley takes over from Ismael after he was sacked Sunday Morning. So what about our opponents? Birmingham City have a very two-sided season so far. Under the stewardship of ex-hornet and fan favourite John Eustace, they made a very encouraging start, sniffing around the playoff spots early doors, before we managed to beat them 2-0 in the reverse fixture with two very late goals. For whatever reason, the Blues then dispensed with the services of Eustace and instead looked towards an proven League One manager and ex-England legend in Wayne "Wazza" Rooney. As has been well documented, his tenure was nothing short of a disaster, as he took the upwardly mobile Blues from playoff contenders to relegation candidates. How he stayed in that position for so long is anyone's guess, but thankfully he was relieved of his duties. Despite doing "a Watford" by changing their head coach multiple times throughout a season, Brum find themselves sitting very close to the Championship trap door, and like Watford, are not safe yet with games starting to run out. They still have some good players, and they did a fair bit in the recent windows but for reasons un-known, they have failed to really 'gel' as a unit and results have been less than satisfactory for a while. I cannot write this preview without mentioning our ex-captain Troy Deeney, being a life-long "blue nose" who ended his playing career (sort of) at St Andrews. Been there, seen it done it: Troy Deeney has played for and captained both Birmingham and Watford A Real 'Six Pointer' That phrase get's thrown around an awful lot in football. But in this case, maybe it rings just a little bit more appropriate. Birmingham have a game-in-hand over Watford, as an out-of-sorts Middlesbrough are next on their fixture list. Defeat to Boro' before hand, and a loss to Watford on Saturday could put the Blues into the relegation zone if other (more resurgent) sides get another victory. For Birmingham, an equally poor trending down Watford side, a home would be the perfect tonic to get their survival strategy up and running. If they do beat Middlesbrough, they will then move above into the very congested mid-section of the table and have even more confidence they can beat us and almost cement survival. For us, WBA did us a big favour on Sunday by hammering Huddersfield at the John Smiths. That result put us seven points above the drop zone. It was a good result for us of course, but we do not want to get back into the habit of having to be bailed out by other clubs to ensure we achieve our goal, which this season, is all about survival. Beating Birmingham on Saturday in Cleverley's first game in charge would be a massive step in achieving this feat. Defeat could pull us closer to the drop zone with the likes of Sheff Wed, QPR, Swansea and Millwall in better form than they originally were. With Rotherham all but relegated, there is quite a fight on to stay up and not join them in League One next season. "Clev Ball" We do not really know what sort of style Cleverley will play, and going purely on the basis of his past relationships playing with current squad members, it would not be difficult to speculate he would start Bachmann, Sema and Dennis. However, I do hope he has taken this first week to assess the squad, and can see as much as we can how much of a liability Bachmann has been even in the three games (FA Cup included) he has played since Hamer's exclusion from the first team. Whatever new tactics he works on, and whatever formation he picks, let's hope it works and we least give ourselves something to cheer about on Saturday. Skyla Predicts: Birmingham 0 Watford 1
Great write up Skyla! Looking forward to Clevsball and attacking teams which is what the players reportedly want to do! Hamer needs to be in goal for this one.
Must win game. Real relegation 8 pointer. BC 1 (Deeney pen) WFC 0 (Deeney missed pen). TC fired and replaced by Ethel from purchase ledger supported by Bill "odd job man" Simpson and Ruffles "the spaniel". Ethel - "We can still catch Norwich".
Bit paradoxical but the apathetic expectation and lack of self awareness of Watford fans is really grinding me down. TC probably isn't going to spend 5 years here taking us to glory in Europe, but I liked him as a player, definitely made of the right stuff. He'd WALK into this team even at the latter end of his career and he played for England more than a dozen times. Good luck to him in this little spell. I'm sure we'll see an immediate improvement.
I would have felt fairly confident for this one were it not for Hoedt's suspension. I have no idea how our already erratic defence is going to cope with him missing. It would probably require Porteous to shift to LCB as I think both Sierralta and Pollock will be worse with their left feet than he is. Regardless it's not good to have such instability in the defence for such a fixture. The other big question mark is whether we'll get Chak back. Has there been any indication yet whether is injury was just a knock or a more serious muscle problem?
Yes they are the 2 big unknowns at this stage. Would have felt more confident, if not "confident", with Chak and Hoedt available. Will be interesting to see what formation and tactics he tries to employ with the players available.
Here's super pundit and well-known hardman Graeme 'Souey' Souness, wearing every Liverpool home and away shirt from the last 20 years, giving his prediction for Clevs' first game in charge. Yup 2-2 looks favourite
We really need to be winning this as it’s a bit of a six pointer. The best I can see is a draw though.
Will be very interesting to see how he sets up the central midfield. Our squad is clearly best suited for a 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1 because none of our strikers can really play in a 4-3-3 without support and we have a lot of players that are suited for a supporting no. 10 or second striker role. The problem is that none of our central midfielders work very well in a double pivot… Livermore only really works in an anchor man no. 6 role at his age and TDB also looks best in a deeper ball playing role with two other central midfielders ahead of him. Kone doesn’t have the tactical awareness and Chak is too weak defensively. Kayembe is probably the best fit, but he also seems better as a no. 8 when he can press more freely.
End of season "on the beach" clash between those playing for a move and a mix of U23s getting experience. Expect at least 4 unknowns and a trialist. Complete waste of my VPL
I watched their game against Boro last night and they looked awful. We have been bad recently but I am not sure I have seen us play as bad as Birmingham did last night. Birmingham looked really uncomfortable with the ball at the back and passed it away repeatedly, especially Ruddy who made Bachman or Hamers distribution look like Edersons. Cleverley was at the game last night and no doubt would have seen how shaky they were trying to pass out from the back. Hopefully we see a good pressing game and put them under pressure, this is something Clevs was particularly good at as a player. Birmingham’s fans turned against them quite quickly last night also and although it was already mostly an empty stadium plenty of their fans started to leave at 80 minutes when they were only a single goal down.
Free hit for Clev's first game, can't be expected to go to mighty St Andrews and get a result. Plus we've got much, much, much easier games coming up.
Would be the best ever League One squad, like shooting fish in a barrel. League One is much more fun that the champ which is dominated by the big clubs.
With Captain Clevs at the wheel... plain sailing ahead. Hopefully we can avoid the Bayat pirates in January and August though.
I don't think there's ever, with one or two exceptions, much consternation from us about the actual sackings of each manager, it's why they are seen as so necessary which is the problem
