A few weeks ago, we comfortably beat Birmingham at St Mary’s so it’s a slightly ridiculous quirk of the fixture computer and that the return game at St Andrews has come around so quickly. It’s not really a quirk as such, more like it’s an absolute joke. I mean, how hard can it be to put the first half of the fixtures and the second half of the fixtures in roughly the same order. It was before my time when you used to play the home fixture before playing the away fixture against the same team a week later, when all grudges were carried forward into the second game and no one had any chance to calm down.

Any away game against Birmingham is considerably more difficult than a home game against Birmingham as borne out by the Home and Away league tables for the Championship. Birmingham are currently 6th in the Home table and 22nd in the away table with only Sheffield Wednesday and some team in blue down the road beneath them. At St.Andrews though, they have just the one home defeat all season with six wins and four draws. Birmingham manager Chris Davies has been coming under a bit of pressure recently because of the away form, so at least he gets a day off from that. However, lose a couple of home games and the knives will certainly be out. Maybe they are out already because they have failed to beat Derby and Charlton in their last two home games and don’t have a win of any description until back before we beat them at the start of December. Their previous game to the 3-1 defeat at St Mary’s was a home win against Watford. The heady days of November when they stuck four goals past Pompey, Millwall and Norwich in consecutive home games must seem like long time ago.

If you are interested in the Home and Away league tables, then Saints are unsurprisingly meandering along in 12th place in the home table and 13th place in the away table, which is something you could have entirely predicted, given how underwhelming we have been overall.

The two players I highlighted when we played them at home were Klarer and Roberts. Klarer managed to get himself sent off at the weekend for booting someone up in the air so he won’t be playing and I’m highlighting Roberts again in the hope that he is shit, like he is every time I’ve highlighted him so far. At St. Mary’s, the biggest threat for Birmingham was the goalscorer Demarai Gray who caused Tom Fellows quite a lot of problems down the Birmingham left and scored a brilliant goal, cutting in from the left. Needless to say, a shot from the left towards the far post always goes in against us. Gavin Bazunu may be given a pass for that one because it was so well hit but it’ll be interesting to see whether he’s given a pass for the shit winning goal he let in against Oxford a couple of days ago. I would imagine that both he and Jack Stephens are very vulnerable in terms of team selection today. The only player from the outer reaches of the squad putting his hand up at the moment is Jay Robinson, who is probably not gonna come in ahead of any of the attackers , so unless one of Elias Jelert or Mads Roerslev gets themselves fit, or Tonda decides to bring in Ronnie Edwards from the cold, I don’t foresee any radical changes.

The team news is a bit of a what the fuck moment with the only change being Jay Robinson in the starting lineup, which is not a bad thing in itself, but the fact he’s replacing Leo Scienza, who was of course rested for the last 35 minutes of the Oxford game, is a bit of a strange one. Leo is on the bench so it’s clearly not injured.

As the game kicks off, it’s clear that Azaz has moved to the left and Robinson to the right as THB‘s long ball down the line is brilliantly pulled out of the sky by Robinson as it drops over his shoulder and he heads towards goal. As he gets to the edge of the penalty area you realise how lacking in confidence he is to take a swing with his left foot so he knocks it on one to Armstrong who almost seems to fall over it playing it left to Azaz but goalkeeper Beadle closes him down easily enough and snuffs out the danger for a corner. I can’t help but feel that we butchered that one.

Birmingham‘s first venture forward sees the ball bobbling around about 30 yards out and as is becoming the way these days, Stansfield takes a ridiculously early shot from miles out because Baz’s reputation proceeds him. This time the ball flies just wide.

Stansfield is involved again soon after as he capitalises on sloppy Saints play in midfield and flips the ball over the top of Nathan Wood and Kyogo is clean through but luckily, Kyogo is shit and lifts it miles over the bar. To use golf parlance, he needed a little pitching wedge and instead, hit it with a fucking great shovel, which I realise is not gold parlance.

We could do with alleviating some of the pressure but we don’t as Manning gives the ball away in midfield and Stansfield again takes aim from 25 yards but it’s a back pass, but at least Baz saves it. Stansfield is determined to lengthen the number of consecutive games that he’s scored in against Saints, playing a 1-2 around Captain Jack before getting closed down and the ball going off for a corner Birmingham work the corner short and Roberts whips in with his left foot towards the back post and there’s a header by Birmingham’s Robinson which flies just wide.

The defensively dreadful Manning is much better in the opposition half however and he nips to win the ball and on it goes to Azaz and then Downes who switches it right to Robinson, back to Azaz and a cute through ball to Armstrong who can’t get it out of his feet and ends up scuffing it through to the keeper.

We are showing signs of some improvement as we work here across the pitch again, left to right to Jander, and some good work by Robinson and Fellows sees the latter pull it back from the goal line to Armstrong but he’s effort again is not well hit and easily blocked. Saints go again through Jander and Fellows skins the fullback again before playing inside to Robinson and his low shot is blocked and ends up going off for a goal kick.

Having gained a little bit of momentum, there’s more absolutely shocking play by Manning from left back which sees him give the ball away but there should be no danger as it’s gone to Kyogo and Nathan Wood makes sure there is no danger by absolutely binning him and earning himself a yellow card. In comes the free kick into the mixer and we predictably don’t win it and after some absolute shambles with four of our defenders trying to kick the ball and it going absolutely fucking nowhere, we rely on Kyogo to clear it for us which he does by taking a shot which doesn’t even go out for a goal kick.

As we approach half time, there is more danger as Jander cancedes a free kick over on our right and Willumsson has obviously been made aware of our goalkeeper so he tries to shot from a ridiculous angle which flies over everybody and pings off the bar on its way out of play.

Half-time and though there’s been quite a lot of incident it’s been incredibly poor quality by us with long long stretches of play where we’ve gone absolutely nowhere and Armstrong has been isolated. This tactical tweak of making Azaz and Robinson play narrow, is really not doing us any favours in attack because neither Manning or Fellows is providing much from out wide. The main issue however is that everything is so lacking in urgency.

The second half starts with us kicking off and Willumsson wrestles THB to the ground whilst the ball is in the air off the ball and for once, the referee has actually spotted it and given us a free kick. Manning produces an excellent delivery and picks out THB, who’s back header is well pushed away by Beadle.

So, THB is nearly the hero but his next involvement is to give the ball away whilst trying to play it across the defence to Jander and Jander gets out of trouble by hand-balling it, taking the yellow card and it’s a free kick to Birmingham 30 yards out. In it comes, over everybody, towards the back post and Fellows thinks it’s going out but a Birmingham foot keeps it in and hooks it back across for a free header at goal which is blocked on the line by THB behind Baz. We lose another header before Armstrong heads it up in the air from 5 yards out, lose another header as Robinson heads it back into the mixer and Neumann is leaning back but manages to get a header on it to loop it up and it drops down into the top corner of the net. You may be wondering why I didn’t mention the goalkeeper in the description of that goal and that’s becausehe basically is doing nothing whilst the ball is pinging around and when the header comes in he attempts a flying dive from his goal line to tip it over the bar and basically gets lobbed. Another fucking joke goal. Once again, shit defending by many but he has to save that.

Saints look completely gone to shit and Stansfield in time honoured fashion, accelerates through our non-existent midfield and has a got from 30 yards, which sees Baz fly to his right and tip it onto the post. Really good save it has to be said.

Tonda has finally worked out that we need our best player on the pitch and Robinson and Fellows come off to be replaced by Scienza and Jelert. I’m not impressed with Tom Fellows going off to be honest. Back to it and we work the ball all the way across the pitch in front of the Birmingham defence as we do, before Manning crosses it over absolutely everybody and Finn Azaz has to retrieve it at the back post. His knock back is seized upon by THB as he steamed into the box and he belts it towards goal and Beadle shovels it out in uncomfortable looking fashion.

More changes as Armstrong and Jander are replaced with Archer and Bragg. A long ball forwarding by Bragg is knocked down and a Birmingham player runs with the referee which gives us possession, then we give it away again and there’s a couple of Birmingham players playing head tennis until Bragg picks it up about 40 yards out and whilst the time appears to stand still, Jelert does not stand still and makes a run behind the defence. Bragg slides him in and his cross flicks up off a defender and there is Archer getting in in front of his defender to flick it past the keeper into the net. Get in, and what makes it even funnier is that all the Birmingham players are running to the referee like they have some sort of entitlement to not play tot he whistle. Hilarious. The game only stops if the ball hits the referee. If a player bumps into him then it’s tough shit. Chris Davies on the sideline in the Birmingham dugout looks like he’s about to cry but that’s a perfectly good goal. Maybe he’s crying because it’s Cameron Archer, the Aston Villa youngster who has scored.

Birmingham have a reputation for a complete head loss, not helped by their manager and the next time the ball goes towards the Birmingham technical area he picks it up and throws it away and gets a second yellow card. He genuinely looks like he is about to cry this time. As Roy Keane would say, “baby”

We failed to build up any sort of head of steam in the last 10 minutes. Matsuki comes on for Azaz and his main contribution is to sprint back into the right back area and give away a stupid fucking free kick with a foul against a guy who is going absolutely nowhere. Willumsson fancies another pop at Baz, this time from an even narrower angle and this time he gets nowhere near and puts it onto the roof of the net. A goal kick later and that’s the end of that.

What a strange performance that was. It was like we were playing with the handbrake on. For about five minutes in the first half and for about fifteen in the second half, we took the handbrake off a little bit, but never fully. We didn’t do enough to deserve to win the game and a draw is probably a fair result and it does at least stop our rot of losing away games. It’s a tough game to come here but Birmingham had a few players missing and the team ont hepitch was no great shakes, so its hard to escape the feeling that we left two points out there.

As a positive, you have to say that Tonda got his substitutions right. On paper it didn’t look terribly clever but you can’t argue with the fact that the end justified the means with Bragg, Jelert and Archer combining for our equalising goal though unsurprisingly, it was introducing Scienza that changed the whole direction of the game with Birmingham suddenly having a running threat to worry about. Bragg added energy that Jander didn’t have in midfield and Jelert seemed to have been instructed to play a lot higher than Fellows was.

Birmingham had a reputation going into this game as a team that loses their shit when they feel that something has gone against them and my God, what a perfect example that was today when Iwata turned into the referee. The rules state that the game only stops if the ball hits the referee, so basically, if a player runs into him then it’s just tough shit and that is basically that’s all there is to say on that, no matter how much frothing at the mouth there is from Birmingham players and supporters and their manager, who got a yellow card for complaining about that, followed by another yellow card for throwing the ball away like a petulant child soon after.

If Birmingham gave us a helping hand by getting distracted on our goal, then we certainly gave them a helping hand on their goal. It all started with THB playing a crap pass across the defence and Jander giving away a free kick as a result. From the free kick being put into the box there was complete carnage with us managing to lose four challenges deep into the penalty area with no one taking control and then the final header from Robinson managing to lob Baz when he was stood on his goal line. It’s another ridiculously crap bit of goalkeeping because any other keeper just takes a couple of paces backwards and catches it under the bar, but Baz tries to take off and do some spectacular shit and get the timing all wrong and ends up virtually shovelling it into the net off of the bar. Some have an agenda against Baz but it doesn’t mean that those people are wrong, because the fact remains that though many other players were culpable in the concession of the winner against Oxford and the goal today, Baz should have saved both and made really piss poor efforts to do so in both cases. On today’s one in particular you want him to be more decisive when the ball is pinging around the penalty area, but having stayed at home, partly because he is scared of getting beaten to the ball and it just lobbing over his head, he gets lobbed anyway. In fairness to him, he did make a decent save from a long range shot by Stansfield just after that which, had it gone in, would’ve been 2-0 and game over but having said that, most goalkeepers save that because it’s 25 yards out with a clear sight line.

I feel that Tonda got out of jail today with his substitutions and as I said, the end justifies the means so you can’t really knock it. The starting XI was fucking weird, given that Scienza was given 35 minutes off against Oxford but then left out again today of course and he of course bottled the decision to take out the goalkeeper, like I knew he would and it’s cost us again with another poor goal conceded. The captain, who should also have come out of the team, wasn’t as bad as he was against Oxford but he still wasn’t great and is still felt like he spent more of the game watching rather than participating.

The formation we are playing with the three central defenders is absolutely maddening at times. The idea in attack is to create overloads in attacking positions but we’ve never got an overload because our extra player is a central defender. The only one with any ability to play a pass is THB and he’s also the only one capable of stepping into midfield to create an extra man there. To be fair to Stephens, he did appear in the final third a couple of times in the second half, but purely as a passing option when we were passing the ball around in front of the Birmingham defence.

The major positive today was probably Elias Jelert, giving us the tantalising glimpse of the fact that we could play with a back four. The downside of that possibility would mean Ryan Manning having to play more defensively and by that I mean, actually do some defending. There is always the option of Welington if he can’t step up in that scenario. I was also impressed with Cameron Bragg when he came on and it wouldn’t surprise me if he started against Middlesbrough next week with Jander having played a large number of games consecutively and looking a bit jaded. It will be good for the confidence of Cameron Archer to get a goal. Even though it may possibly go down as an own goal, the movement in front of the defender was top class, and if nothing else it gives Adam Armstrong a bit of a kick up the arse as he’s fallen off his game a little bit recently. I do give him a bit of a pass today because the way we set up in the first half in particular left him really isolated with no one close enough to take defenders away from him.

No time to fuck about and dwell on this performance though as it’s Millwall at home in three days time. At least we stopped the rot today but it still feels somewhat unsatisfactory because Birmingham with no great shakes and with the players they had missing, and were absolutely there for the taking. We do not look like a side that is going to be challenging for the playoffs and ultimately, that is something we have to fix now that the January transfer window is up upon us otherwise expectations for the season and expectations of Tonda are not going to be met.

Up the fucking Saints