Lost in the Forest

Andy Munro on Blues’ defeat in Nottingham.

A team that’s sacked its manager and on a winless streak (or only one win in fourteen) was, as usual, an accident waiting to happen for an increasingly desperate Blues side.

It’s unlikely that anybody would have won the weekly ‘Guess the Blues line-up’ competition as the tweaks continued and the only unchanged scenario was the 4-2-3-1 format which has served Blues so well (?) this season. Other surprises were the return of a demotivated Shane Ferguson and the ‘resting’ of the free-scoring Macheda.

In the line up against them was a team that included Matt Derbyshire and after just two minutes Blues succumbed to a case of Ex-Striker’s Revenge. It’s typical that when Matt arrived at Blues it seemed an exciting development (at least in Blues’ terms) but apart from a couple of spectacular goals against lower league opposition, he was distinctly unimpressive every time he pulled on a Blues shirt.

As usual, we woke up when it was too late but still should have got an equaliser in the last quarter…mind you, it would have been slightly undeserved given the overall balance of play. On the comedy sports radio show aka The Tom Ross Show, the man himself and ‘Broads’ were whinging about the immaturity of young players. Perhaps they should alert David Moyes before he attempts to sign 18 year old Luke Shaw from Southampton.

In fairness, a point well-made was that Ibe is wonderfully skilful but overcomplicates things instead of getting the crosses in – surely that’s Clark’s job to instruct him on something that’s hardly rocket science? However, it could be that when Ibe looks up and sees Ziggy dawdling in gormless mode, he decides that a shot from even an impossible angle is a better option.

Where do Blues go from here? Relegation is a distinct possibility with teams like Millwall picking up points. On that subject, I notice that the gangling ex-Wolves striker Maihoefer was on the mark. He’s a beanpole that scores, unlike Ziggy who is generally just a beanpole. Their managerial change seems to be working and whether you loathe or love Lee Clark, I can’t help wondering whether a managerial change (indeed any change) might have saved our bacon. Over to you, Peter P .