FEA: Bring On League One
Lessons learned, an exciting young manager and a fantastic squad. Hopefully this will be a season like no other for Birmingham City.
I’ve been wanting to pen something ahead of the new season for a few weeks but life, illness and work have mostly put paid to that.
That’s not me complaining. My life is good. But thoughts about Birmingham City are consistent in my brain and being the introvert that I am, I don’t always have the release in normal, everyday life to let my thoughts out.
And how can any Blues fan not have a number of thoughts about the upcoming campaign? It’s probably the most important summer of my Birmingham City supporting life. I’m watching a brand of football in pre-season that has never been played by my football club. We’re breaking transfer records and enduring the hatred / envy of so many others. We’re having to change our mindset from being paupers relying on favours and hand-me-downs to being the big fish in the pond expecting to make an almighty splash.
It’s about 05:30am on the Friday that the English Football League season kicks off and now feels as good of a time as any to begin typing away on my phone to put a few thoughts down.
I’ll confess to this being a little ad-hoc rather than my normal process of having a clear idea of what I’m writing and making notes accordingly. I’ve also barely slept for reasons. Let’s see where this takes me...
So, where do we begin?
I’m loathe to go back to last season. It’s done. It’s over. The fact that my first two pieces for Betfair this season involve Blackburn Rovers and Plymouth Argyle did give me a small chuckle. But if people want to go back, you can do so here: https://afootballblogbyryandeeney.substack.com/p/birmingham-city-2023-24-review-six
When I wrote the above three months ago, I had concerns. Would Tony Mowbray remain as manager? What would our recruitment look like? How would we turn around our style of play having failed to do so on many occasions previously by backing the wrong horse? What changes would be made at the top? How would we avoid falling into the trap of so many before us by failing to win promotion? If the last nine sides promoted all began the season with the manager employed at the end of the previous campaign, would the departure of Mowbray write off our promotion chances? If most promoted sides relied on a solid core of players that were often retained from the previous season, how would we fare with a group who hadn’t exactly proven themselves reliable?
The three or so months since completing that piece have gone some way to answering those questions.
The club haven’t rushed or panicked. Mowbray moved on when he and the club came to the decision that the club needed to move forward without him, owing to his ongoing health issues. Rather than rush into a decision or find a friend of a friend, the club commenced a proper interview process to find the man to replace him in the dugout. Also departing were Frank McParland and John Park from the recruitment team but again, there has been no panic. The club have backed their data, followed deals through and added either proven quality or guys that shoudl prove to be serious quality once they settle in.
Pre-season didn’t get off to the greatest of starts with only goalkeepers in the door and then our trip to Austria being delayed before a 5-0 hammering against Paderborn as we fielded a team full of kids.
Since then, it’s been impossible not to get excited as a Birmingham City fan.
I completely understand misgivings over Ryan Allsop and Bailey Peacock-Farrell given their careers but both appear to be of excellent character and even if they don’t prove to be the long-term solutions, Allsop played regularly for the side that finished 7th in last season’s Championship and Peacock-Farrell has played under Marcelo Bielsa and Vincent Kompany before a fine campaign under Darren Moore at this level.
Alfie May has bagged 20+ goals in his last three seasons. Emil Hansson, Willum Thor Willumson and Christoph Klarer arrive on the back of some excellent campaigns in Holland and Germany and I’ve had more than one smart cookie in the game reach out in shock that we’ve managed to sign them, advising they are absolutely Championship quality. Alex Cochrane immediately appeared to be good competition for Lee Buchanan at left-back. Marc Leonard oozed class for Northampton Town while missing just ten minutes of league action last season. Luke Harris comes highly rated as a full Wales international.
And they all appear to fit the jigsaw that Chris Davies is building. This exciting, fast-paced, unique style of football that sets up nominally as 4-2-3-1 on a teamsheet but becomes so much more once the game begins. The intensity is high. The press is high. The ball is always moving. We always have width. We always have an option. If we give the ball away, the players are quick to win it back. Players have license to make forward runs from any area, meaning we are finding Ethan Laird and Paik Seung-Ho higher up the pitch than Alfie May at times.
And yes, that’s former Manchester United academy star Ethan Laird and South Korea international Paik Seung-Ho. They are lining up with Krystian Bielik, who left League One last time he was around because of his World Cup ambitions, Dion Sanderson, who bossed this level at Sunderland and earned his moves to the Championship, Welsh regular starter Jordan James (more on him later), Koji Miyoshi and Siriki Dembele and Lee Buchanan and Keshi Anderson and Tyler Roberts and yes, the squad is ludicrous for League One level, with more to come.
We can’t use results in pre-season as a yardstick but we can absolutely look at the level of performance and see how things are coming together. Our first XI took on West Bromwich Albion’s first XI in our final pre-season game and though there was an evenness to the occasion, I thought we looked the more comfortable outfit and that eventually told as players tired. It wasn’t until we were 3-1 up that changes were made.
It speaks plenty of Chris Davies at this early stage too. He’s taken on a club used to “snot and guts” football, as one former manager called it, and a football team that had the talent but lacked direction amid numerous managerial changes and people pulling in different directions, be that the players themselves, their coaches, the ownership or the fans. Just over a month after pre-season began and players and fans have a clear idea of what they are going to see heading into the season.
I like that he speaks with clarity but also that he refuses to get carried away. He’s not making any proclamations, he’s not allowing himself to get dragged into media spats as his potential competition try and mock our spending (yes, we’ve seen your comments, Huddersfield Town and Ian Evatt). He has even avoided discussing boyhood club Reading before our first outing, focusing purely on Birmingham City, his team and his supporters.
You could read all of the above and be forgiven for thinking Birmingham City are going to back up their Arthur Cup triumph with the League One title, EFL Trophy (I want to say BDSM but I have no idea what it stands for without Googling it) and Senior Cup. Maybe even another League Cup trophy while we’re at it.
It’s not going to be that simple and for all the joking and piss-arsing around online, responding to opposition fans who think we’re going to get the shock of our lives because an opposing team might try and score a set-piece or kick f*ck out of us because we’ve got better players, I think we all know that. And not just because it’s “Typical Blues”.
We have been crap for pretty much 11 years. We’ve been average and functional at our best. Over those 11 years, we have averaged 52.9 points per season, losing 19.64 of our 46 league matches. We have barely mustered over a goal per game. We have lost 19+ matches and scored 50 or fewer goals in seven of our last eight seasons. We haven’t won more than 15 games since Gary Rowett’s only full season in charge. Then you factor in the constant chopping and changing of ownership, CEOs, recruitment teams, managers, leadership groups, ideologies and it’s little wonder people are scarred.
That is the challenge that everybody has to overcome. The owners. The directors. The management team. The coaches. The players. The academy. The fans. It’s hard to be successful without almost everybody on board – especially when you’re starting from such a low ebb.
Because even if (when) we get this right, it’s not going to come without its hitches. We have to learn how to be patient against inferior opposition on and off the pitch. We have to learn how to win when we’re not at our best. We have to learn how to win back-to-back matches. We have to learn how to go unbeaten and pile a run of victories together. We have to learn how to keep clean sheets. We have to learn as a fanbase to stick behind the team no matter the circumstances to give us a boost.
My expectation is that we learn these lessons early and get through the first ten games in a strong position. Because we are going to endure a frustrating 0-0 or 1-1 draw early doors away at a club that will see us as a free hit and we will lose somewhere 1-0 or 2-1 in a game that we either cost ourselves or just can’t find the goal we deserve against an excellent defensive display. We have to learn how to respond to those setbacks and the sooner we do it, the better.
I think Tom Wagner, Knighthead and others involved at the top of the club have always understood the scale of the task in turning the ship around but you wonder how much they have learned in year one about the emotional scarring and baggage that has come with it – especially when the intent is to turn things around quickly.
I don’t doubt for a second that the decision makers have the club’s best interests at heart but it feels like they are on the same page this summer and you can see that rubbing off on everybody else. The messaging and clarity from the top is being felt by supporters and that only been enhanced by what we have seen on the pitch during pre-season and the messaging and clarity from our manager.
If we can respond to those early season hurdles, the league should be ours to lose.
So what else do we need to do to make sure that happens?
The squad looks in fantastic shape but it’s not complete.
Neither Allsop or Peacock-Farrell are sexy names but they are probably the strongest pair of goalkeepers in League One.
Ethan Laird, Christoph Klarer, Dion Sanderson, Krystian Bielik, Alex Cochrane and Lee Buchanan is ludicrously strong and the news that we could be signing a right-back that played 1500 minutes for Champions League qualifying FC Twente only reminds us just how much power we have in the market right now. I suspect another centre-back could follow though with the competition as strong as it is, I wonder what kind of centre-back we add.
The centre of midfield is a little light with Marc Leonard, Paik Seung-Ho and Jordan James the current options. The news that James is likely to sign for Rennes only heightens the need for another midfielder. Alfie Chang may not be ready for a bit longer as he returns from injury. Are Josh Home and Brandon Khela ready to be first-choice back-up and be an injury away from 20 starts? It remains to be seen. Tyler Roberts is an option but it’s not exactly a natural role for a guy that has spent much of his career up top or off the front. I’m guessing we add two more.
There isn’t an attacking midfield set like ours to probably ever play in League One. Koji Miyoshi, Willum Thor Willumson, Luke Harris, Tyler Roberts, Romelle Donovan, George Hall, Brandon Khela, Siriki Dembele, Emil Hansson and Keshi Anderson. And they could be joined by Ayuma Yokoyama shortly, a winger I’m informed is quick and direct, perhaps the one thing we do lack at present. That there are murmurs around sending Hall, who would have played an important role last season if not for injury, out on loan says plenty, while Khela’s role could be reduced to backing up the full-back roles and midfield.
We clearly need another addition in attack to join Alfie May, who has had an excellent pre-season, and Lukas Jutkiewicz. The hope is for Jay Stansfield and one other, but we will see what comes.
All in all, another five or six bodies arriving would finish the job. And we don’t need to panic if one of those doesn’t arrive by the end of the window given we can prepare for another push in January and add those one or two extra bodies to give us an extra boost. And it makes it easier for those arriving now or in January that the current group appear to know the system almost inside out already. We need tweaks, not an overhaul, which is a nice spot to be in.
Watching Birmingham City should be fun. Writing about Birmingham City should be fun. Being a Birmingham City fan should be fun.
And for those that want us to fail? FEA.
Really enjoying reading these articles back, looking at this in October shows how astute you were & how many of the points raised have been addressed. Great writing 👍