Thrown to the Lions

Andy Munro writes about Blues’ defeat at Millwall.

Millwall used to have a bloke called ‘Bomber’ in the seventies, who was a feared football hooligan and his mentality seems to have been taken on board by the current side. Strangely enough their current manager, Neil Harris, was a reasonably cultured player yet he favours a Wimbledonesque approach which he proudly boasts as being “indefensible” which, to be honest, seems right in both cases.

Either way, the new Blues ‘soap powder’ couldn’t cope and although it was only 47 minutes before a panicky Colin put through his own goal, the writing was on the wall well before that. This was disappointing with a supposed robust midfield in the shape of Kleftenbel and Davies and a back four ‘strengthened’ by the addition of Grounds and Roberts. Just as disappointingly Vassell and Adams flitted in and out of the game while Maghoma was at his most frustrating ly flattering to deceive.

The subs made little difference and I’m still to be convinced that Jota is worth the supposed mega buckets that we paid. Listening to Steve Cotterill, it was obvious that we had prepared the right way to meet the Millwall bombardment but, at the end of the day, it was down to the players. While the new manager bounce has been more like the faintest of tremors, I’m backing a manager in the long term who speaks sense and has a passionate approach to the game.