Birmingham City, freshly promoted out of League 1 are the visitors to St Mary’s this afternoon, in a game where we find out if Tonda Eckert can deal with the adversity that we happened upon last week at Millwall.

Friday morning arrived with reports beginning to do the rounds that Tonda would be given the permanent job, which is what happened in the evening, with him signing a deal until the end of next season, which is when the parachute payments run out, so Sport Republic have put all the eggs in this particular basket. There was no way they weren’t going to appoint him and the cynic says they’ve got in before the Birmingham game, just in case we lose it because if he was still the caretaker and we lost, then more people would be questioning his potential appointment. For me anyway, his appointment is probably the least surprising news that we could’ve had and whilst I have major reservations to do with his lack of experience for such a huge job at a top club, we now all have to get behind him in his mission to get us back into the Premier League and hope that this latest gamble by Sport Republic is one that actually comes off, unlike five of the previous six.

So – new permanent manager and wouldn’t it would be good if this announcement could be accompanied with a bounce back win against a team who are not great away from home, having only won once away all season, and that was back in August. Birmingham at St Andrews are a different deal altogether, having won their last four home games which is propelled them to just outside the playoffs, four points ahead of us. They will be looking at every away game as an opportunity to sort out their away form, knowing that if they do that, they will be a realistic bet for promotion. Their last few home results have put a bit of a shine on what was a very mixed start of the season, where the media, having hyped them to bits due to their high profile ownership, had to climb down a little bit as the Blues got off to a sluggish start. The more realistic Birmingham fan won’t have been surprised by their mixed start but the feeling around the place must be pretty good at this current moment in time.

My impression is that the feeling around Saints is pretty good at the moment, but it would be significantly better if we could win this afternoon. Last week, we missed both Leo Scienza and Flynn Downes as we lost to Millwall, but they should both be back today. Leo has been out and about on social media this week and Patient Zero Flynn has taken the opportunity to open up about the illness that has bugged him for the best part of two years, namely the stomach issues that his bout with E. coli has caused him. In typical Flynn London Boy manner, he pointed out that it’s hard to have a game based on energy when you’re spending all day on the toilet. He is of course hoping to be fit today and by the sound of it, it’s good that we play in black shorts. It’s certainly a message to people, including myself, who are sometimes a little bit too quick to assume and too quick to judge. In the words of the great Roy Kent “no one really knows what’s going on in other peoples lives.”

I’m not expecting too much different from the starting lineup today, other than the obvious with Leo and Flynn coming back in for JRob and Cam Bragg. As I said, Birmingham’s away form is not great and they are bound to be a little bit tentative, so Leo’s drive and direct running should be utilised as the ideal weapon to put them on the back foot.

Birmingham side will include a couple of notable names, Christoph Klarer was a young Austrian defender when Ralph Austrian Hasenhüttl was our manager but he never got given a chance before moving on and eventually ending up at Birmingham where the age of 24, he is their captain and defensive rock. They also have a winger Patrick Roberts who was a child prodigy at Fulham before being snapped up into the Manchester City system of ruining young players, loaned out all over the place and having good spells back at Fulham, at Celtic and largely indifferent spells elsewhere before landing at Birmingham. I think we were linked with him at one stage or another, as we were with every Manchester City youngster (apart from Morgan Rogers – the one truly good one) when Jason Wilcox was our director of football. I remember being slightly apprehensive about him playing against us for Sunderland a couple of years ago and he was absolute shite so let’s hope he keeps that going today.

The team news is as expected with Downes and Scina back in for Robinson and Bragg and it takes all off one touch of the ball for Scienza to show why we missed him so much last week by picking the ball up on the left and just driving towards the penalty area before being chopped down. With Scienza obviously wanting to make an impact, it is amazing to me that he walks away from the free kick and the brains trust of Manning and Armstrong combine for Arma to blast the ball at knee-height into the wall. Please in future can we let our best player take the free kicks.

No free-kick needed on seven minutes as Scienza once again breaks towards the box and slips it square to Azaz on the edge of the ‘D’, and he takes touch onto his left foot and reverses it back across the keeper Beadle and into the corner of the net. Some run this boy is on. Get in.

The ‘most vulnerable after scoring’ theory is given a run out as Manning goes into full fanny mode as we try to repel Birmingham’s response to our goal, as he falls over looking for a free kick and gifts Brum the ball. He then compounds it by giving Iwata far too much space to float a cross into the penalty area, which is met by Gray but headed straight at Baz.

Birmingham are very open and Downes wins the ball and gets us going down the left with Scienza picking it up again before cutting in and going for the far post which forces Beadle gets airborne to tip away. Birmingham then try and drop off if we still find our way through with Jander playing a beautiful ball between the lines for Scienza to pick up and he skips round the fullback and gets to the line before picking out a perfect pull back to Fellows, who batters the shit out of the crossbar. Honestly, that boy is never going to score but once again it is absolutely brilliant play by Leo. In the carnage that follows Birmingham clear the ball which is coming straight back to us and it hits the referee so naturally, Birmingham get a free kick. All complete nonsense and then their keeper kicks it straight out of play anyway.

Fellows then picks up the ball in right back area under a bit of pressure turns away from two tackles bundles past one more and then he’s in open field and all bets are off. He runs past Doyle and two others before giving the ball to Scienza who is clearly so surprised that someone else has done something brilliant, that he then totally fucks up the pass out to Manning on the wing and it runs off for a goal kick.

Birmingham aren;t heeding the warnings though and a ball is played up to Armstrong, and he comes short and deliberately cushions a header to Azaz, who gives it back to Armstrong in the middle who was in loads of space. He turns towards the goal drops the shoulder to Sned Klarer for a hot dog and then hits it towards the far post and the goalkeeper obligingly makes a balls of it and it nestles in the inside side netting. Two fucking nil again – what is this Tonda football?

Scienza gives Beadle another chance to make up for his fuck up by going to the far post again as he cuts in from the left and once more the keeper is up to the task and that’s half time. 2-0 and it really could have been five. I am liking this first half thing of blowing teams away.

Second half, no changes and Saints are again starting strongly with Armstrong linking up with Scienza. It finds Manning and he chips it over the defence to the right hand side and Azaz is coming in and his first time cushioned volley goes narrowly wide, whcih is actually a bit of a surprise given the goalscoring form he is in.

There’s a slight alarm when Arma goes down injured but he limps to his feet as Birmingham play on and the ball goes left to Demarai Gray who, out of nowhere cut in past Fellows and absolutely fizzes one at the far post which Baz gets nowhere near. Shit.

Birmingham of course think they can get something out of this now, as do the very large travelling Brum contingent but Downes puts a stop to that with a crunching challenge in midfield which sends Scienza away and the main man cuts across the top of the box, smashes a shot goalwards, which Beadle can only parry back out into the middle and Adam Armstrong runs it into the net for 3-1.

Saints are really looking to put this to bed now with Scienza flicking the ball over and onrushing Birmingham defender and finding Armstrong before exchanging passes again and Armstrong has a chance for his hat-trick from 6 yards but the keeper comes flying out to make a decent save. The rebound comes out to Fellows and we all know that’s not going in.

Armstrong and Scienza are replaced with Archer and Robinson as Saints clearly feel that this game is almost done, but Birmingham are still willingly going forward and a cross from the Manning side is met and headed against the post and Kyogo has an open goal from six yards but spoons over the bar. Absolute shit.

It’s a tale of two substitutes after that with Oriol Romeu coming on for Casper Jander as Tonda tries to close the game out, but what he giveth with one hand, he taketh away with the other and Joe Arribo is on to replace Azaz. Romeu gets stuck in and wins a couple of tackles and Aribo doesn’t. What he does do is take fifteen minutes to touch the ball and when he does that he is so slow and the touch is so bad that he ends up launching a Birmingham player into the air and is lucky not to get sent off.

Manning does some more fannying about in midfield looking for a free kick and falls over and Kyogo’s shot takes a reflection and Baz has to kick it away from the prone position. He gets up, takes the fist bumps from the other defenders and then aims a volley of abuse at the fanny of a left back.

Cameron Archer has taken a load of shit from the Birmingham fans for his Villa connections and has worked hard since he come on and when Tommy Doyle makes a mistake near the halfway line, Archer finds himself with a run on goal and he bears down on Beadle but the touch is not close enough to him and the keeper comes out and makes another good save. 95 minutes up and the ball rolls towards Tonda Eckert in the technical area and he inexplicably goes full Antonio Conte and takes a big swing at it and punts it into the crowd. The cheers from all bar the Birmingham bit of the ground made it a totally worthwhile yellow card. No further alarms and another three points.

To be honest that was an easier than expected win against an opposition who showed some ability and some threat going forward, but didn’t seem to have the structure nor the defensive players to cause us real problems. Even when Birmingham pulled s gosl back, I didn’t feel that there was any way that we wouldn’t score again and it literally took about five minutes to kill it off and give our new head coach another win on the board.  Both goalkeepers had to pull off some decent saves, but I always felt like we had a little bit more quality about us.

When you look at the football being played now by Saints under Tonda and compare to what we had under Will Still, it is night and day. Sure, the ability to chuck a goal in and not keep a clean sheet is still there but there’s absolutely none of the stodgy football that never went anywhere. We drop deep into our half, wait for mistakes and then hit teams on the transition and whilst we have our starting XI on the pitch, we are very good at it and it’s very exciting to watch. There are still areas to work on in that when we let the opposition have the ball, it is a little too easy sometimes for them to attack and get crosses into the box and then we are relying on one of our three central defenders to head the ball away. We struggled a little bit today in the full back areas with Tom Fellows getting left out to dry somewhat against Demarai Gray, who was by far and away Birmingham’s best player. Fellows inexperience as a defensive full-back was demonstrated.  We could’ve done with a right back on the bench the Tonda was about to address the situation by bringing on Ronnie Edwards but in the event, Birmingham decided to save Gray for another day.

So, Fellows had issues because of Demarai Gray and Ryan Manning had issues because of Ryan Manning. When the referee worked out that Manning throwing himself to the deck wasn’t really a foul, then that’s one less way he can get out of doing any actual defending. The constant stream of crosses coming in from his side was present as usual, and it will cost us sooner or later. After one such pathetic effort in the second half, it was notable that his Republic of Ireland team mate Baz, had a proper go at him and at least you feel that someone has noticed and therefore there’s a chance of improvement, if not much chance.

The game was of course about our forward play and the goals that we scored. Leo Scienza took all of seven minutes to show exactly while we missed him last week at Millwall. The first time he got the ball, he burst through the middle and got brought down on the edge of the box for a free kick that Adam Armstrong took for some reason. The second time he got the ball, he carried it to the edge of the penalty area before giving the ball to Finn Azaz to open the scoring. He could have scored three himself with two curling efforts tipped wide and the one shot that was parried back out for the third goal. Then there was the ridiculous run when he beat three players on the left, getting to the line before rolling it back for Tom Fellows to smash a shot against the bar. Fellows is never going to score by the way, but his running with the ball is brilliant and it just causes absolute carnage. I think there were two ridiculous runs weaving past players which started from the right back area and ended up with him about 40 yards from the opposition goal.

There was another goal for Finn Azaz as of course as mentioned and two for Adam Armstrong. Outside of his goals though, Arma was once again superb, giving an absolute exhibition of how to play as a lone striker when you’re not the tallest. It is absolutely fucking mystifying why he has never looked remotely capable of doing this in the past. His first goal had everything and that he came deep to receive the ball, laid it off, took a return pass, sent the centre back for a hot dog before smashing it into the net. His second goal was a case of right place right time.

Our three central defenders were largely excellent and didn’t give Birmingham much of a kick. Yes, they scored a worldie and sometimes I’m slightly concerned that our central defenders are too far infield but when it came to competing for the ball and doing the basics, all three were decent with THB probably being the pick of the bunch. Behind them, Gavin Bazunu had a good game. Two decent saves and no real alarms. The one he saved his feet after the deflection was one to be particularly pleased with. The midfield of Downes and Jander, looked a lot more robust than when Downes was missing last week and it was interesting to see Tonda try and regain some control in midfield for the last 15 by pairing Flynn with the returning Romeu.

Not all the subs worked of course because Joe Aribo was one of them and he was predictably pedestrian and pathetic when he came on and was probably lucky not to get sent off after lunging in after losing the ball the first time he actually touched it, after about 15 minutes on the pitch. Cameron Archer worked a lot harder than he has done before as well, and was clearly desperate for a goal against Aston Villa’s big rivals, given the shit he got given when he came onto the pitch. It was just a shame that he missed that one on one with the goalkeeper, but fair play to him for working hard and taking a leaf out of Adam Armstrong‘s book with his willingness to try and link play.

It was brilliant for Tonda Eckert to get a win on his first permanent game and Sport Republic must’ve been absolutely delighted with that as it answered one of the questions about him being able to respond from adversity. Restoring Flynn Downes and Scienza to the starting lineup was not exactly rocket science, but regardless of that, the optics of bouncing back from a defeat are good. We are still 11th in the league but that’s barely worth worrying about given how tight it is in the top half of the Championship. Win the games and the league table will look after itself and the next game to win is at home to West Brom on Tuesday. Maybe that will be the day that Tom Fellows scores?

Up the fucking Saints.