Match Report: Blues 0-0 Crawley Town

League One Champions Blues are held to a goalless draw against soon-to-be-relegated Crawley Town.

Apr 19, 2025

League One Champions Birmingham City made it 22 matches unbeaten at home with a goalless draw against Crawley Town.

The hosts spent much of the game in the ascendancy but couldn't turn the ball home on a frustrating day in front of a packed out St.Andrews.

Chris Davies, who was sat in the stands after receiving his sixth booking of the campaign, made just one change from the side beaten at Wembley on Sunday with Alfie May replacing Kieran Dowell, who missed out through illness. Myeung-Jae Lee was named in a matchday squad for the first time.

Blues came out to a guard of honour and showed why they are already champions within two minutes, Tomoki Iwata playing Jay Stansfield in behind but debutant Toby Steward was equal to his effort.

Stansfield was enjoying the early minutes and struck the post after latching onto another pass behind the Crawley defence. He then saw an effort blocked by Dion Conroy after skipping inside before crossing for Willum Willumson, who failed to get sufficient contact.

Blues let up slightly as the visitors began to settle but Ben Davies headed over a corner, Steward made a fine stop low down to deny Keshi Anderson after good work from Laird and then pressure from May gave Paik a chance to shoot but Dion Conroy was in the way.

Crawley has the first chance after half hour, two deep deliveries unable to wield efforts on target but Rushian Hepburn-Murphy later forced a stop a the near post. Blues, meanwhile, produced a lovely football bit of football before the whistle that Anderson couldn’t finish off.

The second half wasn’t flush with chances. Our first two set-pieces wielded something, Paik Seung-Ho delivering first for Laird with Willumson blazing over and then for Klarer with Laird unable to turn home under pressure.

Blues ought to have gone behind when Allsop gave the ball to Hepburn-Murphy but the striker got back on his feet and proceeded to blaze over the bar. The ex-V*lla youngster was the big danger and he later played in substitute Gavan Holohan but he couldn't beat Allsop under pressure.

The home side were the ones pushing late on but to little effect. Anderson, Lukas Jutkiewicz and Luke Harris combined to play in Paik, who couldn’t lift the ball over Steward and Stansfield’s injury-time cross bounced just an inch too high for Taylor Gardner-Hickman to prod the ball home at the back post.

A goalless draw.

Lineups

Blues: Allsop; Laird (Gardner-Hickman 71) Klarer Davies Cochrane (Lee 71); Iwata (Leonard 56) Paik; Anderson Willumson (Harris 56) Stansfield; May (Jutkiewicz 82). Unused: Peacock-Farrell; Hanley.

Crawley: Steward; Radcliffe Conroy Barker; Roles (Papadopoulos 92) Ibrahim Fraser Kelly; Camara (Anderson 73) Hepburn-Murphy Doyle (Holohan 62). Unused: Tanimu Anderson Papadopoulos John-Jules Showunmi.

Tactics

This was 4-2-3-1 v 3-4-3 but it became a game of individual battles and a little bit of chicken and mouse.

Blues were in their usual shape for the most part. There was some dovetailing between Laird and Anderson down the right with both men having spells out wide and spells inside, but for the most part, Anderson was free to pick up positions and step inside. Stansfield generally held width, albeit Paik and Cochrane were quick to support down that flank.

Crawley were 3-4-3 with Roles and Kelly out wide while Doyle and Camara played off Hepburn-Murphy. However, they shaped up out of possession to go man-for-man with Blues.

Camara stepped up alongside Hepburn-Murphy with the two up against Klarer and Davies while Doyle sat on Iwata and Fraser followed Paik. Ibrahim then had responsibility for Willumson, Roles for Cochrane, Kelly for Laird and the back three against Blues’ front three. This can be seen in the image below.

And this is the picture at the other end once Laird skips away from Kelly as Crawley are left defending 3v3.

Crawley did try and switch up on the left with Kelly and Radcliffe switching roles where possible so Kelly could follow Anderson infield.

But what this also meant was that Blues did the same going the other way. They squeezed the pitch a little more and were happy to leave a wing-back free, but there was various occasions where Davies would step up with Camara when he dropped and Klarer would follow the run of Hepburn-Murphy. The full-backs got out to the wing-backs quickly and the midfield marked their men.

This did play somewhat into Crawley’s hands as when they were able to get the ball down and play, they would find space to move the ball back into the centre of the pitch and spread it out wide to the wing-back, who was often free. And because the defence were being shifted around by their men, quick movement of the ball would allow the wing-back to deliver with an overload in the box.

On the day, Blues had the better individuals, had more of the ball and created the better opportunities, but Crawley stuck to their task, showed quality with the ball and more than played their part as opposition trying to win the game.

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Players

This is going to get difficult.

For all the concerns about our game, I thought we looked pretty sharp as a group for a fair amount of the game, particularly in possession where players did try and make something happen.

Cochrane looked sharper than he has for a period. I thought Iwata looked good and showed some of his longer range passing – particularly the pass for Stansfield early on. And speaking of Stansfield, he looked up for the battle and burnt his man on a couple of occasions. Anderson was always full of it and clearly wanted to make something happen. Klarer was at his dominant best and his challenge to deny Hepburn-Murphy was very well read and covered.

I thought Leonard looked tidy from the bench and played a couple of smart passes. And Myeung-Jae Lee is not only real but also a decent footballer, it appears, showing some lovely touches under pressure, playing a couple of nice passes and getting down the left-hand side to good effect. Would like to see more of him.

Who struggled? This wasn’t the game for Alfie May, whose intelligence and sharp touch was less required in a game where raw speed and power to attack a defence leaving space would have worked better. And I really felt this was an opportunity for Harris but it never quite happened for him.

For Crawley, I was impressed by Hepburn-Murphy, who was involved in pretty much everything good that they did in the final third. Kamari Doyle is a name gaining traction and I understand why on this evidence – he and Kelly worked so hard down the left-hand side while also showing quality in possession. And Dion Conroy has now played around 165 minutes against Blues this season and not conceded a goal – he was subbed off with an injury issue just before we scored the winner at their place.

Conclusions

There was a fair bit of anger and frustration on social media yesterday and suggestions of people booing in the ground.

Forgive me but, I don’t get it.

Sure, we want to win. And I think people have got their heart set on breaking records and all those things. It would be nice. To have that immortality at this level and across the EFL would be quite something. But honestly, I don’t think I can find it in me to be angry if it doesn’t happen.

Yesterday was frustrating. We didn’t score, and didn’t score against a team that are pretty much guaranteed to be relegated.

But the team at least turned up, worked hard and pushed for the win. We had 13 shots to 5. We created 2.75xG to 0.42xG. We created 5 big chances to... well, Fotmob says 0 but I suppose the Hepburn-Murphy chance was big. We hit the post. We also had another couple of opportunities where we tried to be too clever.

Part of the frustration is likely to be that the quality of our play lessened at the minutes ticked by and it led to a pretty meh second half. We only really went for the jugular for the final moments as Allsop hoisted balls forward to Jutkiewicz and Klarer. But even that shows that the players do care still and want to win. On the day, we just didn’t take our chances.

I don’t think the substitutions helped. And I don’t mean to say that in a “the subs were rubbish” kind of way, more that we are freely making changes earlier to give players an opportunity to either rest or play football in a way that we perhaps wouldn’t have a month ago.

Ultimately, we are the past the stage of “need” to win. We don’t need to win anymore. We’ve achieved the need. We’re champions.

We’re at the stage of wanting to win. Wanting to break a couple of records. Wanting to lay down a points total that may never be broken. There is a difference.

Davies said this week that this doesn’t happen often. That teams that win promotion almost never get time to soak it in and enjoy it, let alone be title winners with six games to play. So let’s enjoy it. Let’s enjoy the guards of honour. Enjoy chanting Championees. And hopefully the players will pick up some wins along the way rather than phone it in.

And maybe I’m a little relaxed because I’ve seen teams phone it in previously. Reading won and drew 6 of their last 13 league games in their 106 points season. Chesterfield lost 4-1 to relegated Dorking Wanderers and Kidderminster Harriers, losing their unbeaten home record in the process. Meanwhile we’ve got Christoph Klarer steaming across to deny a potential 1v1 because he cares. Give me that.

I suppose I’m also a little relaxed because of what I shared on Twitter yesterday. Here is how often selected players have played this season:

Christoph Klarer: 50 – 49 – 4353 (48.37) (games played – starts – minutes - (equivalent 90’s))

Alex Cochrane: 50 – 48 – 4250 (47.22)

Ryan Allsop: 40 – 40 – 3600 (40.00)

Paik Seung-Ho: 49 – 38 – 3557 (39.52) (including South Korea)

Tomoki Iwata: 42 – 41 – 3506 (38.96)

Ben Davies: 41 – 37 – 3392 (37.69)

Willum Willumson: 50 – 39 – 3372 (37.47) (including Iceland)

Jay Stansfield: 39 – 35 – 2948 (32.76) (including Fulham)

Ethan Laird: 43 – 32 – 2862 (31.8)

Alfie May: 53 – 31 – 2824 (31.38)

Keshi Anderson: 43 – 32 – 2661 (29.57)

Taylor Gardner-Hickman: 37 – 27 – 2312 (25.69)

Marc Leonard: 42 – 21 – 2115 (23.5)

Some players have put some serious shifts in. Some have been on international duty. Some have been involved in almost every matchday squad this season. They’ve produced some monumental efforts. Even the lads like Marc Leonard – he signed after two seasons at Northampton Town and has played in 42 matches this season for whatever amount of time.

Next up is Burton Albion away and plausibly the last game in which there is something riding on a Blues game for either team. There is an argument that Blackpool could be involved in the play-off race, admittedly.

It means that if the players want to win, they are going to have to fight, win their battles, win seconds, try and calm down a place where there will be excitement given Burton are on the precipice of achieving what many felt was impossible at one stage – Burton are comfortably a top half team since the turn of the year.

My expectation is that Davies may make one or two changes, but that we will likely go full strength and then make changes for Stevenage on Thursday night to freshen the team up for one big last celebration in front of a home crowd at St.Andrews this season.

KRO.

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