Great to see Freddie score a couple and love this injection of pace he brings to the front line.

... and even though he was only on for a short time, Chaplow looked pretty impressive.

5

Bru was superb today, always demanding the ball, winning lots of tackles and getting his goal.
Great to see Sears scoring too - good to see him offering a different threat to what our other strikers can do.
Bart made a couple of mistakes tonight, he cam in when Gerken made mistakes, harsh on him though as he had been very solid.
Also I was very impressed with Chaplow when he came on, he got around the pitch made lots of tackles and after a bad first pass, he kept the ball very well - if Skuse misses Sunday he would do a much better job than Tabb as the holding midfielder.

On another note we've had a lot of rubbish ref's recently, tonight's one didn't do too bad!

3

Good result and an entertaining second half - although ther were long spells of hoof ball with not much skill. Birmingham front two looked pretty good, but Murphy seems affercted by his nose protection mask. Although he worked hard, he did not look as involved as he has been earlier in the season. Fortunately, others in the team scored. Freddie was very effective on the night and look a good signning. Tyrone still looks to have an attitude problem. Is he still reacting to the lack of Premier transfer? Perhaps a few weeks out of the team might get his feet back on the Earth again? Three points is good, and another three on Sunday will be very welcomed. Now who are we playing?

0

Can't remember the last time we had striker who could score the type of goal Freddie Sears did. His second goal especially was one any striker would have been proud of. Didn't think his strike partner played well at all, given his very high standard this year. The mask surely cannot help. So Freddie was undoubtedly MoM. My view on the others is as follows:

Bart: Worrying performance, especially before Sunday - Mick will need to consider who plays in theis key position
Luke: Not his best performance but certainly not his worst either
Christophe: As so often our best defender
Tommy: Again not the greatest performance but he kept going
Tyrone: Towering header and some great forward runs mixed with some suspect defending. He seems to lose concentration. I'd play him left midfield.
Skusey: Looked good before his premature departure
BRUUUUU: Delighted to see him score, some excellent play but some poor passes - bit of a mixture
Ando: Fully justified his return and was our best player before the break but faded after ht
Parr: A bit mixed but one great run in the first half and a superb saving tackle near the end, before our crucial fourth
Tabb: I'm not his greatest fan but he put in a good shift and did the dirty work which MM is such a fan of
Chaplow: Promising, if brief, introduction.

Birmingham had a wealth of attacking talent: Donaldson was excellent first half and well supported by Thomas. Then they had Gray, Zigic and finally Lloyd Dyer to come on, the latter having destroyed us on a number of occasions when at Leicester. Their defence however, was poor and they have conceded 8 goals in four days. So perhaps it is not surprising that our forward play was better as a whole than that of the defenders.

Overall an entertaining game for the neutral, which I am certainly not - so very nervous until Bru's goal. Fingers crossed for Sunday.

6

A must 3 points which we thankfully achieved.
Not the best performance but much improved from Saturday
Too many long & high aimless balls [ from both teams ]
Sears looked very good - nice to have some pace up front
Result should boost confidence for Sundays crunch game
If McGoldrick is fit I hope Mick plays all three Strikers [ with McGoldrick playing just behind Murphy & Sears ]

Come on you Blues

1

Sears looked very good and deserved his goals. Bru much improved on his performance Saturday.

Defensively not great. We got away with a couple after scoring the first goal and a better team than Birmingham would have made us pay! Still too much hoofball for my liking and our failure to keep possession hurts us badly.

Still, three points and something to work on for Sunday. Will need to defend much better than last night though to get anything from that game.

0