Andy Munro reports back from Birmingham City’s defeat at Norwich.
Another lacklustre first half display at Norwich saw Blues two down and gave us a mountain to climb. As per recent form, we came up short although we did at least pull one back through Maxime Colin and give the promotion-chasing home side a bit of a scare before their injury-time third. John Eustace blames avoidable defensive errors against “Premiership class” players but as manager he has to take some responsibility. Remember that this was against a Norwich team without their top scorers.
Our young midfield duo of George Hall and Alfie Chang didn’t let the side down but in truth it was boys against men, not helped by Juninho Bacuna having one of his “This is why I only cost £400,000” performances.
Up front Scott Hogan ran around like a little boy lost and things only noticeably improved when the Juke put in an appearance. Whatever possessed Eustace to play with two diminutive strikers up front is baffling. Hogan needs to play off a big striker and Hannibal Mejbri’s energy in the engine room was sorely missed. To say that Kevin Long was the star man at the back says a lot about how generally poor we were
Unless we get three points against Luton we will be right in the middle of a relegation dogfight, if we aren’t already, and if we go down then get a points deduction, one wonders about the future of the club. Saying that, though, it is a disgrace that the EFL are trying to retrospectively pin Blues to the wall, having neglected proper stewardship when they patently knew what was going on with regards to the abortive takeover that is currently causing all the problems.
