Match Report: Blues 6-2 Barnsley

Birmingham City move to within two points of League One promotion after thriller v Barnsley featuring a red, a penalty, eight goals & Juke bedlam.

Birmingham City got the better of Barnsley in a eight-goal thriller at St.Andrews that had a little bit of everything.

The visitors were dealt a huge blow after three minutes Mael De Gevigney was sent off but they went in at the break level as Davis Keillor-Dunn's header cancelled out another Jay Stansfield penalty.

Ben Davies and Alfie May gave Blues breathing room early in the second period before Stephen Humphrys pulled one back. Luke Harris, Kieran Dowell and Lukas Jutkiewicz sealed Blues' biggest win of the season.

Chris Davies made one change, Paik Seung-Ho replacing Marc Leonard in the middle of midfield. Otherwise, it was an unchanged 18.

Blues quickly started on the front foot with Stansfield having a shot blocked on the edge of the area. The ball ended up back with Ryan Allsop who played Keshi Anderson in behind the Barnsley defence. He controlled the ball and received a tug, going down under the contact. The referee deemed there to be insufficient cover and raised the red card.

Dowell put the resulting free-kick into side netting but this wasn't about to be a procession of control and competence. A couple of minutes later, Davies headed against his own post after a near post corner was flicked on by Humphrys.

Blues had good chances at the other end with Anderson volleying wide and Laird looping the ball over the bar. Humphrys broke and found Adam Phillips to force a save and a lovely move from right to left ended with Humphrys having a shot blocked. Roberts just about denied Stansfield then got out to block Laird's volley.

The score should have been opened just after half hour when an errant back pass sent Stansfield in on goal. He rounded Kieren Flavell only for Marc Roberts to clear. From the resulting corner, a clearance led to another errant backpass with Humphrys unable to lob Allsop from a distance.

Within 60 seconds of those two chances, Blues would win a penalty. Christoph Klarer played a forward pass to Dowell, who dummied and allowed Anderson to sprint in behind, getting a touch before Flavell and going over. Stansfield stepped up and found the net.

But Barnsley were quick to respond. Roberts' long throw from the right found the head of Conor McCarthy and was headed in by Keillor-Dunn at the back post. Game on, and not undeserved.

Blues spent the next period finding control and the next shot at goal wouldn’t come until first half injury time when Klarer stepped forward and blazed over. Tomoki Iwata did similar after a corner was cleared his way and there was still time for another Barnsley effort, O'Keeffe driving down the left and crossing for Phillips to head over.

The half-time message was obvious for Davies – get the team to calm down. And there was no better way to make that happen than an early goal.

Dowell delivered a driven corner to the back post that was headed back across goal by a Barnsley defender. Davies reached it first and the ball kindly bounced into the corner.

May nearly poached the second before miskicking an Anderson pass then firing over after cutting inside but he got his goal. Stansfield was played in down the left and supported by Cochrane whose delivery was perfect for May to nod in. Job done.

Or was it? Before the hour, the Tykes had pulled one back. Humphrys was again the architect, driving forward, finding Phillips and latching on to a through ball that he powered across goal and saw squeeze over the line by the arm of Allsop.

They were running out of steam though and Blues were beginning to really take control. An inswinger from Paik Seung-Ho found Iwata whose goalbound effort was cleared to safety. McCarthy then played May in behind with Luca Connell forced to deny Harris a simple finish and the resulting corner was played short with Alfons Sampsted unable to connect with a strike.

It was therefore no surprise that the fourth came moments later. May and Dowell linked up and the former was able to squeeze a pass through for Harris who was clinical 1v1.

Humphrys tried his luck again, showing power before forcing Allsop into a save from distance. Stansfield came close to making it five with a dipping half volley that bounced against the foot of the post and Dowell found May on the right with his effort blazed over.

May returned the favour on 82, finding Dowell with the forward pass and the ex-Everton youth took a touch to send McCarthy for a hot dog before curling the ball into the side netting beyond Flavell.

Having played some part in four of the five goals, Dowell had one final contribution and it led to the biggest pop of them all at St.Andrews. He nicked the ball from Kelechi Nwakali in the centre of the pitch and played in Jutkiewicz. The big man saw his first effort saved but turned the rebound home to send fans into raptures as all 10 team-mates sprinted to the corner to celebrate with him.

A beautiful end to a chaotic day. Blues win promotion on Tuesday with a win at Peterborough United.

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Lineups

Blues: Allsop; Laird (Sampsted 67) Klarer Davies Cochrane; Iwata Paik (Leonard 83); Dowell Willumson (May 37) Anderson (Harris 67); Stansfield (Jutkiewicz 83). Unused: Peacock-Farrell; Hanley.

Barnsley: Flavell; De Gevigney Roberts McCarthy; Watters (Bland 12) Russell Connell (Nwakali 87) Phillips (Jalo 72) O’Keeffe (Lembisaka 87); Humphrys (Lewis 87) Keillor-Dunn. Unused: Hayton; Barratt.

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Tactics

This became a tough game to provide tactical insight on given that we never got to see Barnsley’s gameplan – it was over within three minutes.

The closest we got to seeing what they were hoping to do what in the build up to the red card. It looked as if they were hoping to battle down one side, condense the pitch and look to spring out in the middle or wide on the other flank. The shape appeared to be a 3-5-1-1 / 3-4-3 with Keillor-Dunn floating from an inside left role while Russell and Phillips flanked O’Connell in the middle.

Alas, there was an early red card and it meant Barnsley dropping into a 4-4-1 shape. They went with a similar tactic to the one described above, condensing the pitch in something of a 4-1-3-1 shape with one of Russell and Connell engaging higher in the middle while the other one sat alone in front of the back line.

For Blues, this was lovely from an in-possession shape. It forced Bland, who replaced Watters to play right-back, and O’Keeffe to step inside on spare men and leave the wide options open. It forced the midfield to narrow which opened up space for Klarer and Cochrane to step forward and receive the ball from midfield. Dowell and Willumson had space to float into. Paik could step out to the touchline with nobody bothering him.

For the penalty, you can see Paik out wide, Anderson infield and as Klarer plays the pass, O’Keeffe and McCarthy are marking three players.

Here, leading to the fourth, you can see four Barnsley defenders are making four Blues attackers with three having already stepped on ahead of Barnsley midfielders.

And when it came to delivering the ball, it also meant we often had the numbers game in the box.

Barnsley did at least make a fist of things. Their attempts were to condense the pitch, win possession and play wide quickly, hoping to find space. This was shown for their second where Connell wins possession and quickly executes the pass to Phillips:

Davies did make a couple of positional changes during the game:

1: May replaced Willumson and came on to lead the line. Stansfield moved to the left, Dowell into the central position and Anderson shifted to the right.

2: Harris and Sampsted replaced Laird and Anderson. Dowell moved back to the right with Harris central.

3: Jutkiewicz replaced Stansfield with Harris moving to the left and May playing off the big man.

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Players

How much can you judge players on days like this? We played against 10 for the best part of 90 minutes and naturally looked the better side.

I suppose you can raise concern over Willum Willumson being hooked early, but Davies says he was ill and I’m happy to acknowledge and believe that. A question can also be raised towards Ben Davies and Alex Cochrane defensively given Phillips and Humphrys enjoyed play down that side.

Kieran Dowell was in his element, playing a role in five of the six goals Blues scored. He dummied for Keshi Anderson to run through for the penalty, sent the corner leading to the second, found Alfie May who found Luke Harris for the fourth, scored the fifth and sent Lukas Jutkiewicz away for the sixth.

Alfie May had another excellent appearance from the bench and it does raise the question now as to whether he has played himself back into the starting XI, particularly with Willumson unwell and not performing. I still get the impression Davies wants Willumson’s additional height in the side, but the calls are being raised. May scored twice against Shrewsbury Town and finished with at least three goal contributions here, possibly four depending on whether he got a touch to the goal that appeared to be Davies’.

A note for Anderson too, who continues to look really sharp of late. I would love to wrap him in cotton wool Tuesday ahead of the final. And I was delighted to see Harris on the scoresheet again – he’s so much better when running forward into space rather than with his back to goal.

For Barnsley, I’m again raising the question as to why Stephen Humphrys hasn’t really kicked on in his career. He’s got everything you would want in a forward in terms of his power, acceleration, powerful strike, close control yet he’s never been prolific. Keillor-Dunn and Phillips were bright in moments and you can see that Connell is a quality operator. Poor Conor McCarthy will have better birthdays. Marc Roberts was very Marc Roberts.

And a word for Corey O’Keeffe, who is probably the biggest sausage to turn up at St.Andrews since Mark Duffy returned for Sheffield United (if you don’t remember, he scored early on, decided to go full Emmanuel Adebayor, roused the crowd up, we led 2-1, he was hooked on the hour and Chris Wilder hammered him post-match). The strange thing in both cases is that most Blues fans won’t have remembered either of them playing for the club. They’re largely an irrelevance. And in O’Keeffe’s case, he’s probably walking away from a 6-2 defeat bragging that he taunted the Tilton from the centre circle while being substituted. Sausage.

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Conclusions

The likelihood is that by the end of this week, Birmingham City will be confirmed as a Championship club once more.

It’s not always easy to reminisce while you’re in the middle of what is happening, but I think we should saviour these final few weeks because we are probably never, ever going to have a season like this again. We’ve broken almost every club record on offer this season from transfer fees to wins and points and whatever else.

And nothing serves as a reminder for everything we’ve been through and how far we’ve come than Lukas Jutkiewicz scoring at the end of a 6-2 win. He arrived under Gary Rowett and subsequently played under Gianfranco Zola, Harry Redknapp, Steve Cotterill, Garry Monk, Pep Clotet, Aitor Karanka, Lee Bowyer, John Eustace, Wayne Rooney, Tony Mowbray, Mark Venus, Gary Rowett again and now Chris Davies.

Here’s the kicker. This is his 9^th season at Birmingham City and this will be the first time he’s finished above 17^th in the league table.

There’s a lot I can say about Juke, but I may save that for the post-season when we know more about his future. I think he deserves those personal pieces rather than it being shoved in a conclusions piece. However, that celebration was beautiful.

There’s a lot to digest here. Promotion. Juke. That sausage in red. Ooo, the red card.

It’s definitely a foul – Anderson makes the most of the contact but he’s beaten his man and De Gevigney puts his arm across Anderson in desperation, knowing he’s been beaten.

Is it a red? Not for me. Marc Roberts (make your own jokes) is about 3 yards away from the incident and Anderson isn’t about to pull the trigger – his touch actually takes the ball away from goal because he doesn’t connect cleanly. I think the ref has made his mind up quickly thinking Anderson is through, even if he does take time to pull the red out.

If I’m looking for why the ref has given it, I would likely point to how slow Roberts is to turn, while Anderson is at full throttle. He probably does think Anderson is about to take another touch and shoot at goal. But I’d be fuming if that was given against Klarer or Davies and I do try and play as neutral as possible with these things, even if I was delighted when the ref brandished the red.

The penalty? Stonewaller. They’re generally crap ones for referees to give on account of the attacker usually having no intention to do anything productive other than kick the ball out of play and go over the keeper’s hands, but they are fouls, are almost always given and we rightly got this call. For all the chat about our penalty record this season, most of the decisions given for us are correct decisions and this was no different.

Am I allowed to mention that I’m a touch concerned by some of our sloppiness in and out of possession? Maybe I’m more aware of the little things given the mental fatigue that has built up but while this wasn’t as poor as Tuesday, there were some parallels in terms of us being susceptible to losing physical duels, being soft on a couple of set-pieces, a couple of loose touches here and there, passing the ball behind a team-mate than into his running path. Just silly little things that come with a lack of concentration rather than quality / attitude. But we also conceded two goals against ten men here and they’re not the standards we’ve set. They’re things I’d like to see ironed out by Wembley.

We scored from another set-piece, which is obviously a bonus. A couple of other players have stepped up of late later in games and are hurting the opposition, particularly Harris and May.

Looking ahead to Tuesday and it’s going to be a strange match. Neither side will want to give too much away. Equally, Blues can win to guarantee promotion in front of a partisan away end and Peterborough fans will be expecting a response after a 4-0 humbling by local rivals Northampton Town, so there is pride to play for, if not necessarily a need for either side to win.

How do we line up? I’ve honestly no idea. This is Chris Davies we're talking about - he will probably demand a big performance and a win because that’s the demands he has set all season. The next game is the most important. Equally, we’ve a cup final on Sunday with around 50k Bluenoses expected to be at Wembley, including hospitality, and this will be our fourth game in ten days.

Willumson came off ill and it remains unknown whether he can play a part Tuesday. Bielik is nursing a knock and may be avaliable. Gardner-Hickman returns to training this week according to Davies and could play a part. Does May get a start? Do we give Harris and Sampsted run outs in place of Laird and one other to freshen things up? How are Paik’s hammy’s looking? Can we give any of Klarer, Davies and Cochrane a rest?

I guess we’ll find out. I suspect we will make five changes during the game to give rests where possible.

Two for promotion. Five for the title.

KRO.