Nothing of interest; just mindless links to bikes Birmingham City Football Club and useless junk

Blogs I read
Titch
Fat Buddha
Nick's Rants
El Mayor
Archives

 
Highbury Blues



Okay, so we didn't expect to win. That's fine. I can deal with that. What I didn't expect was to see Bruce take a cautious approach and play 4-5-1 with Heskey up front and Dunn supporting.

In the last couple of weeks, we've seen the inkling of a new partnership in Heskey and Morrison. Morrison is looking lively and is creating space. He's shouting for the ball and harassing defenders to find their weaknesses. Heskey is hte sort of forward who needs someone with him up front. He looks to lay the ball off and then adds support to the attack. He is not the player you want when you're going one up front. Even more so when the ball comes in like a wave skipping Exocet that has to be brought down by jumping up in the air and hopefully getting it on your head. When you've playing with one up front, the ball has to be on the deck.

Cunningham showed some of his old form, simply nicking the ball off a red shirt and skipping away as if it were an after school kick about. Melchiot threatened but this left us a tad exposed. I thought Clapham had a good game, but others disagree. Such is football.

Gallagher didn't have much to do. He did seem to believe that there was little prospect of a Birmingham player taking the ball off an Arsenal player (or an Arsenal player simply losing control) without BCFC employing foul methods, so there were a few strange free kicks handed out. An uneventful first half passed us by.

Soon into the second half, Pires sent Ljungberg into the area and when Jamie Clapham came across with a sliding tackle, he failed to connect with the ball and seemed to bring down the Gooner. However, Gallagher gave a goal kick.

Which brings me onto my gripe. Diving. If Gallagher thought that the challenge to Melchiot was just, and Clapham's tackle was fair, why weren't these players booked for diving? They weren't the only ones involved and Freddy certainly lept like a salmon.

Celebrating a goal can get you into hot water. Many a card has been produced this season and, as a result, post goal celebrations are limited to shaking of hands. If we can stamp out the shirt raising, the disco dancing and the touchdown jiving, why can't we get rid of one of the more unpalatable aspects of the game?

Next week we go to Viler Park. Villa aren't playing too well but are nicking points. An impressive home record meets a team weak both home and away. It's not looking good.
posted by kwacky at 10:38 am