Andy Munro on Blues’ visit to Brighton.
Our record down at the Amex is not the best and with an injury-ravaged squad (at least in ratio to our first choice players) the signs weren’t good. It meant that most of the away support probably travelled more for the Brighton craic than the real hope of three points against the table toppers.
It was good to see the classy Klefenbeld back in the squad but, apart from that, there were no real surprises. In truth, we ended up being beaten by the better side despite Toral’s equaliser. Predictably, it was the ageing but classy Zamora who got the winner for Brighton – he always seems to give us a hard time and practically bullied and destroyed ‘hard man’ Roger Johnson back in the Premier League. Mind you, I quite like him for that.
However, such is the resilience of Gary Rowett’s side that we stuck at it and had plenty of shots culminating in their keeper brilliantly keeping out Davies in add on time. Having said that, we lived dangerously at times and had both our keeper and the woodwork to thank more than a couple of times.
Only one of the newbies was available and when he came on for the last 25 minutes, James Vaughan did himself no harm and looks a more than a decent acquisition. Soloman-Otabor came on for his usual cameo performance but it would be good to see him start a game and see how he performs. It was also good to see Neil Eardley on the bench and he might be back on the pitch sooner rather than later given GR’s annoyance about the current fullback’s needing to cope better with one on ones.
Nobody seems quite sure where Halford will fit in but given his height one might think that he could slot into a centre back position to give us a more robust look. On the subject of’not being sure, it is worrying that the manager’s only comment on the Fulham/QPR ‘interest’ saga has been, “At the moment I’m the Birmingham City manager and that’s what I’m focussed on”.
Let’s hope that this rather double-edged comment is just a ploy to ensure that the current owners don’t become complacent. His departure doesn’t bear think about but if it happens, Nigel Pearson might be an excellent choice. Hopefully that will remain completely hypothetical.
