Match Report: Birmingham City 4-1 Huddersfield Town

John Eustace's side got back to winning ways as Siriki Dembele shone on a brilliant night.

Birmingham City got back to winning ways in style with a 4-1 hammering of Huddersfield Town, relieving a little bit of the pressure John Eustace has found himself under on social media.

Siriki Dembele opened the scoring on a night in which stole the show. He played a key role in the second, scored by Koji Miyoshi, before netting the third.

Blues conceded in injury time before Jordan James put gloss on a brilliant night only soured by reports of racial abuse towards Bacuna.

Eustace made two changes, throwing Dembele and Juninho Bacuna into the XI in place of Oli Burke and Scott Hogan, with Jay Stansfield moving up top.

Blues started on the front foot and bossed the early proceedings with a front foot approach. Krystian Bielik fired wide within 30 seconds before taking the lead, Ivan Sunjic showing composure to find Dembele who skipped past Helik and knuckle-balled an effort Lee Nichols failed to stop.

There was a brief warning shot as Delano Burgzorg saw a deflected effort tipped over by Ruddy and the game started to settle down a little. Stansfield then chased back, won possession and set Dembele away to torment his man and fire wide.

Dembele was the architect of the next move, driving away and finds Stansfield. Stansfield showed composure on the right and found Cody Drameh whose effort was poked in at the back post by the lively Miyoshi.

The game turned end to end afterwards. Longelo tried a nutmeg that led to Wiles shooting at John Ruddy. Stansfield and Miyoshi set up Bacuna for a tame volley. Burgzorg fired wide, Bacuna found Dembele who shot narrowly wide of the far post, Jack Rudoni hit the side netting and hit a shot that went for a throw-in either side of another Dembele burst to set up Bacuna.

While all that was happening, Dembele was having a ball, firstly controlling a cross-field pass with instep of left boot having crossed it behind his right before setting Emmanuel Longelo away. And after beating his man for the nth time, including another trick, Matty Pearson decided he had had enough and wiped him out. The first of three whacks that did little to deter the diminutive winger.

Blues started the second half sloppy but Huddersfield couldn't make the right decisions. Longelo found Dembele who beat a couple then sat two more down with a drag back that almost saw Miyoshi score. And Dembele completed his night when Bacuna held the ball, found Miyoshi in space who in turn set Dembele for a simply finish.

The game was done. Blues slowed down. Huddersfield had a couple of moments but to little avail - Josh Koroma and Rudoni couldn't find the target, Tom Edwards fired over from close range and Bacuna was forced to clear a tame Koroma header off the line.

Blues did concede, a short corner catching Blues out and another teasing Sorba Thomas delivery being prodded in by Helik.

However, Blues wouldn't be denied their night, Longelo driving forward after a quick 1-2 and finding James in space, the substitute firing home from 20 yards.



Lineups

Blues

Ruddy; Drameh (Aiwu 88) Sanderson Long Longelo; Sunjic Bielik; Bacuna (Khela 88) Miyoshi (JJ 76) Dembele (Burke 76); Stansfield (Hogan 76). Unused: Etheridge; Roberts Gardner Jutkiewicz.

Huddersfield

Nichols; Pearson Helik Lees (Harratt 71); Jackson (Edwards 61) Wiles (Diarra 46) Nakayama Ruffels; Rudoni (Headley 46); Thomas Burgzorg (Koroma 46). Subs: Maxwell; REG Jones Hudlin.



Tactics

Blues lined up in a 4-2-3-1 nominally that became more 4-4-1-1 out of possession while Huddersfield were 3-5-2 but more 3-4-2-1 out of possession.

Width was key for Blues. They were dominant in possession and used width to continue that, playing down one flank and if the option to spring wasn't on, they shifted the ball quickly to the other flank. Bielik, Sunjic and Sanderson saw a lot of the ball to enable that with the full-backs dropping deep to receive, drawing on the wing-back then playing forward where they could, either into the feet of the winger or behind for the run of Stansfield. Simple stuff.

Huddersfield's plan to stop it was to defend in a mid-to-low block. They tried to close in on Long and Longelo most. Thomas would drop in with Rudoni to stop the ball going into midfield with Burgzorg often closer to Long with Jackson & Ruffels tasked with closing the full-backs. They were man for man across the rest of the pitch, Nakayama vs Miyoshi and the back three vs Blues' front three.

Huddersfield's problem was less set up of their ambition and more how they carried out, nowhere near quick enough to read situations, leaving them often allowing Blues to turn and move 1v1 and find runners rather than snapping in quickly and stopping Blues playing.

Huddersfield didn't often much going forward. They had a plan to try and have Thomas drop off, feed the ball back and spring out to the other flank, or find Thomas or Burgzorg in the channel. However, they really struggled to move the ball quickly and Blues' energy meant they had little time to play.

Blues' plan was to suffocate. The winger on either flank would leave the wing-back free, step inside on the wide centre-back and with Sunjic stepping up alongside Miyoshi, it became 5v5 against the Huddersfield backline.

Changes:

Huddersfield's final change saw Nakayama move from defensive midfield to wide centre-back with Thomas going into midfield.

Blues' triple change saw Bacuna move from right to left, Burke play wide right and James behind Hogan.

Huddersfield later through Helik up front with Harratt with Koroma moving to the wing and Thomas becoming one of two in midfield.


Players

Siriki Dembele. Blues footballers don't look like this. Quick, sharp, skillful and constantly making good decisions rather than being wasteful. One of the finest individual displays we've seen for a while.

Emmanuel Longelo deserves praise. He was diligent enough defensively but superb going forward, his passing excellent and his work for the fourth so late in the game was fantastic.

Sunjic and Drameh responded brilliantly having come in for criticism at the weekend. Bielik ran the game in midfield. Miyoshi getting a goal and assist was nice.


Conclusions

This was the perfect response for John Eustace and his team.

Without doing much wrong, the Blues gaffer finds himself under pressure to get results because of the increased expectation and below-par performances against Watford and Norwich City have done little to help his cause.

However, the decision to bring a now fit Dembele and Bacuna back into the XI proved inspired on the evening as we ripped through a Huddersfield side that couldn't cope.

Getting bodies back fit was always going to be important to our ambitions and it's just a shame that now we have Dembele, Stansfield, Miyoshi and Bacuna flying, we don't have Laird, Buchanan, Roberts, Anderson and Hall.

The derby on Friday might prove a tired affair similar to QPR a couple of weeks ago but getting out of that with a result would be welcome - their ownership situation may be reminiscent of ours under HKSE but they still have a top manager and squad full of quality - it won't be easy and we have to be on our game.

Also, it has to be spoken about.

A Birmingham City supporter racially abused Juninho Bacuna.

This isn't the first incident reported recently either - an incident was reported against Peterborough United too. And I still recall the appalling language used towards the female referee we had during a cup game.

Credit to Bacuna and Tom Edwards, both of whom were in the throws of a fantastic battle down Blues' left, for calling it out.

It's embarrassing that as a football club that prides itself on being so diverse is having to take action against these issues.

Racist, homophobic, sexist and other derogatory language has no place in society.

It has to stop.