Andy Munro considers Blues’ Euro-adventures.

It was always going to be difficult, yet Blues made Braga look fairly ordinary whilst not being on song themselves. Normally reliable players such as Stephen Carr had a mare although, in fairness, he would usually make a mare look like an endangered species. In truth, after an early flurry Blues never got going until midway into the second half and this was triggered by bringing on first choice players like Burke and Woods.

The crowd was slightly disappointing at 21,000 although this might have been because it was live on ITV4…or are we already becoming as blasé about European footie as Chelski and Man Ure? Even worse was the sight of the Braga fans at kick off numbering one man and a cachorro…yet annoyingly we have almost 10,000 fans travelling to Bruges with the home club only making 1,500 tickets available.

The main difference between the teams was that Braga kept the ball better but I suppose you would expect that against last year’s Europa Cup finalists and currently unbeaten in the Portuguese Premier. Set against them was a misfiring Blues team with players yet to get match fit and to really get to know each other.

At the back Myhill couldn’t do anything about the goals whilst there can be no real complaints about Murphy and Ridgewell although the latter needs to realise that full back is where he is most effective. Carr was uncharacteristically poor and Pablo looked brittle and uncertain.

In midfield Spector battled away manfully with his central partner N’Daw wandering round like a lost soul completely off pace. On the flanks Redmond didn’t really get into the game apart from a scintillating last half an hour. Meanwhile Elliot looked fairly average and, if I was ruthless, in the journeyman category.

Up front Marlon King was excellent, particularly on the ground, while Rooney battled away albeit in an unsophisticated sort of way. Undoubtedly the introduction of Burke and Woods turned the game and we could have easily snatched a share of the points before being undone at the end by a breakaway. Certainly I’m not giving up on the Euro dream but I think Chris H needs to play his strongest side if we return pointless from Maribor…and I think Championship or not, that is what most Blues fans would want.

Incidentally a new song emerged which could rival KRO and goes along the lines of “We don’t care about Carsson, we don’t care about Yeung, all we care about is BCFC.” I couldn’t have put it better myself.