Just back from the game. My very brief assessment...

Firstly, team selection and formation. Couldn't have praised Davey enough when i heard the team. 3 strikers. Brilliant. Need a win, lets go for it. Then they line up and Bogdanovic is on the wing. Yep. Wing. No 4-5-1/4-3-3 ballacks that most folk will be thinking. It was 4-4-2, and Bogdanovic was on the wing. So, for me, he's got it wrong. If its 4-4-2, it had to be Hammill on the wing. And it wasn't.
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First half. To be fair to Daniel, he was arguably the best player on the field down that right hand side. Put in some cracking balls into the box and found space well. Trouble is, these cracking balls would be cracking for him to attack... and he was stuck out on the wing. Mifsud should take his chance, and we should be 1-0 up at the break, against a very poor Birmingham side, who had quite clearly come for a point. Davey has to take some of the blame, i think the whole of the stadium after 20 mins had realised Bogdanovic needed to be in the middle and the long ball tactics were not working (btw, if that was his dossier plan, he wants fecking shooting cos did it **** work).</p>

Second half. Again, very poor for the first 20 mins. Nothing through the midfield, with the exception of a couple of quality through balls from Hassell, to which Mifsud shouold have arguably done better. Then, 16 mins to go. The change everyone had seen after 20 mins of the first half. Hammill for Macken. Within 7 minutes, some good work down the right, Hammill puts in a cross that knocks spots of anything Devaney has ever done... and Mifsud scores. Brilliant. Well done Simon. You can take the praise for that change. Then, within 90 seconds of the restart, Muller has a flap at a freekick, and its 1-1. Ref may as well have blown for full time there and then. It just killed the game off.</p>

Summary: Davey's dossier was a complete waste of fecking time. He picked the wrong team, employed the wrong tactics. Was too far away for the penalty shout on JCR, but looked it from the Ponty End. And the 'Good point against a team in 2nd spot' brigade can go ballacks too... after 20 mins anyone with half a footballing brain should realise they were there for the taking. If we go down on goal difference, or by 1 point.... look at this game as the one that cost us our place!
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To finish: Hammill must start the next game. We have to play through the wingers and Bogdanovic must start up front. Oh, and Muller has cost us more points now than Steele ever has. Return of Luke Steele too.
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To be fair to Devaney - the cross against Chelsea wasn't bad nt

 

You happy now Spartacus ?

Critisism from someone who attended the game ........ pppphhhhewwwwwwwww !

 

Tbh mate the ball should never have got through to Muller in the first place. Yes he should have done better than pushing it straight out but he cant be held fully responsible.

Agreed about Davey's tactics though!

 

"He picked the wrong team, employed the wrong tactics."

What utter rot. We just outplayed the second placed team in the division and but for one bad bit of defending on a free kick we'd have won. Some people want ******* jam on it.

 

Not with his eyes or mind open though.

Most who saw the game will note the positives.

Brum, a team in the top 3 on merit, were worse than us.

Davey's tactics got us a point bart 2 key midfielders and one key defender.

We had more chances, should probably have had a pen and on the night probably deserved a win.

Never mind my view though, take the negative slant every time.

 

lol 'some people want fecking jam on it'

 

RE: Not with his eyes or mind open though.

If they were 'WORSE THAN US' why didn't we take the opportunity to take 3 points then ????????????????????????????

 

I thought that playing the long ball to mifsud for 75 minutes was the wrong tactics

I'm just glad that davey realised everyone else was winning so went to 4-4-2 instead of the 4-5-1 long ball he'd been using for the rest of the game.

 

RE: Not with his eyes or mind open though.

On the night they were worse than us, whether you like it or not.</p>

Sometimes you don't get what you deserve in football. Pathetic that that should have to be spelled out to a so-called fan.
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Thats right

I mean, Davey wanted to play the long ball. He was going crazy whenever one of the centre halves hoofed it up to Mifsud - or did we decide to ignore that part?

 

lol nt

 

sorry I thought that davey was the manager

the one that those nice folk at the FA decided was allowed to make substitutions and things.

Pretty sure he's the guy leading them in training every day and in tactics too. If the entire squad of players have been ignoring him for almost 3 seasons then something is wrong because week after week the same thing happens.

 

Are you happy with a point against the 2nd placed team?

I know I am.

 

They were there for the taking

And if we'd employed the right tactics we could have got a win.

It doesn't matter one bit where birmingham are in the league, we were playing at HOME and should be hoping to win every home game. The fact that we are now merely hoping to pick up the odd draw at home says a lot about davey's progress.

 

RE: They were there for the taking

I appreciate you find it impossible to give credit, but yes it does matter where Birmingham are in the league. They were poor tonight (and have been whenever I've seen them), but they usually grind results out.

I think we should have won tonight - but we didn't because of a lapse in concentration at the end. Their goal wasn't scored because of the tactics, it was scored because we failed to block the shot and Muller fumbled then fumbled it.

 

Boggo played wide right against QPR.....

For most of the game, not midfield more inside foward, and had a good game, more of the same on Saturday with Hammil starting and we'll beat Blackpool!