All Aboard the Zolacoaster! — Notes for Birmingham Friday, 31st Mar 2017 12:00 by HarryFromBath HarryfromBath assesses the mood in the opposition camp ahead of Saturday’s game at Portman Road by delving into their forums. “Is anyone else worried?”, “Extremely, I don’t want to be dicing with relegation”, “We all suffer. We can all suffer at Rochdale next season”, “As teams below us steel themselves for survival football, we look weak and ineffective”, “Objects in the rear-view mirror are closer than they actually appear.” “We have relegation rivals now.” City head to Suffolk level on points with Town and with just their poorer goal difference separating the two sides. Two creditable draws at home to Newcastle and at Cardiff before the latest break were preceded by an alarming home defeat to second-bottom Wigan. “How to completely screw up a football club in three months”, “All we have witnessed under Zola is one of the most dramatic freefalls down a league table we will ever see over a season”, “I have not witnessed a more catastrophic period of management”, “An overachieving team has fallen apart.” Fans are furious with the club’s owners for sacking former boss Gary Rowett just after his side won their corresponding match against Ipswich last December. His replacement Gianfranco Zola has since taken a side which was just outside the play-off places on a run of just two wins in 17 league games. “I will never recover if we go down, absolutely never recover, purely because of where we were a few months ago”, “The footballing gods have a habit of punishing clubs who make stupid decisions”, “There is sadly nothing we can do as fans other than hope the club just see the error of their ways.” Gianfranco Zola“Let me be completely clear. Zola must be replaced by a football manager who knows what he is doing”, “Anyone who makes [former City manager] Lee Clark look good is doing something special”, “That bloke should not be allowed near a football club again in his lifetime. Unless it’s the Villa.” “Now we have Ben Stiller with his Benny Hill football ruining my match days.” The 50-year-old ex-West Ham boss has been criticised for alarming tactical naivety when setting up his teams and for shoehorning the players he inherited into a formation and style of play unsuited to their talents. “Wasn’t Zola brought in for sexy football and promotion? How is that going?”, “Zola has turned a resolute, effective team into a weak, feeble one that can’t defend and wins few matches, a team that is uncreative and scoring few goals and one that is now accelerating down the league table.” “I am not sure at times that he is watching the same game as others are”, “Disjointed, disorganised, three formations a game, no protection for the defence, no clear style of play, weird selections and substitutions”, “It will never work. Any team who sits in and hits us on the break has us on toast.” “Oh, for the days of boring football”, “Zola inherited an uncreative team and is unable to stamp his elegant style on a limited group of players”, “Rowett was clever enough to understand his players’ limitations. Zola doesn’t”, “Each morning I get up hoping Zola will be gone. The man is an idiot.” Formation“Until Zola arrived, I thought I would only see a 3-6-1 formation on Pro Evo 2007. Zola, breaking boundaries”, “The football might be pretty but it hasn’t been exciting, just slow and predictable”, “The play is dull and ponderous. We give opponents too much time to get behind the ball.” KuszczakCogleyShottonRobinsonNsueDavisTescheKieftenbeldKeitaGardnerAdams
Zola has preferred using a back three with wing-backs along with a midfield diamond behind a lone striker. The line-up (above) which lost insipidly at home to Wigan included the heavily criticised Josh Cogley at right centre-back and Cheick Keita at left wing-back. Che Adams started as a lone striker. KuszczakBielikShottonRobinsonNsueDavisTescheKieftenbeldGroundsGardnerJutkiewicz
The Italian dropped Cogley, Keita and Adams and brought in centre-half Krystian Bielik and left-back Jonathan Grounds to his starting line-up (above) against both Newcastle and Cardiff. These additions along with the more physical Lukas Jutkiewicz leading the line brought some much-needed solidity. A Litany of ComplaintsAmong their litany of complaints, fans have highlighted an error-strewn and porous defence, a set of central midfielders technically incapable of playing the football Zola wants and wing-backs who leave space behind them while failing to support a lone striker in Lukas Jutkiewicz who thrives on crosses. “This tinpot manager has taken us to having the second-worst goal difference in the league”, “At times it is Ryan Shotton against the world in defence. Three at the back leaves us too open and the lack of big centre-halves means we are a soft touch at set-pieces”, “The defence looks rudderless.” “The three at the back is so, so poor”, “An Italian mate summed it up after the Wigan defeat, ‘You play well but the defence is clearly a problem. One of them [Ryan Shotton] is tall and looks natural there. One [Josh Cogley] is too young and nervous. The other [Paul Robinson] is too old and slow’.” “The defenders tippy-tapping it to each other is not entertaining.” Fans have slated Zola’s “macabre decision to play in the Barcelona style”, “Our players are not capable of playing the football Zola wants”, “The back three cannot play out from the back so why ask them to do it again and again?” “We have resilient but technically weak midfielders”, “Our midfielders are guilty of overplaying time and again”, “We need to change the midfield by bringing some guile into the side. The diamond we use makes us one-dimensional”, “The midfielders struggle to stamp their authority on the game.” “Zola favours narrow midfield patterns and no conventional wingers while using wing-backs to give a wide attacking threat”, “We have flair and pace in wingers Jacques Maghoma and Kerim Frei, one on each flank. For a supposedly attack-minded manager, Zola’s aversion to wingers is astounding.” “We need to go back to exploiting the flanks as often as we can. That is where most of our goals have come from this season and it suits the players we have up front and out wide. There seems to be an insistence on playing through the middle at times, which simply doesn’t suit our players.” Many fans would welcome a switch to a two-man strike pairing. “Zola’s teams can’t defend but more shocking is that we are not very creative and score so few goals”, “We still lack a sharp, quick striker to complement Jutkiewicz”, “Playing with just one striker at home to Wigan was simply a disaster.” Birmingham 0 — 0 Newcastle“A good point and very well battled. Well played Blues”, “A battling performance and a bonus point I didn’t think we would get”, “Even the most diehard Blues have to admit it’s an unexpected point but I will take it”, “It is essential we stick with this back line, there is an understanding between them.” Fans left St Andrew’s happy having witnessed a solid, workmanlike performance from their team which held the league leaders to a draw. The visitors dominated both possession and chances while City keeper Tomasz Kuszczak underlined his recent good form with a series of fine reaction saves. “It was a great point and to be fair to Zola he played in total Rowett style, nothing but hard work and commitment from limited players”, “Zola has spoken about defence and they have been doing a lot on the training ground, tightening up at the back and from set plays”, “Credit the players today.” Cardiff 1 — 1 Birmingham“A cracking result in this day and age”, “Performance aside, that’s a decent point”, “Not been long back, it really was an awful game between two very poor sides”, “A poor game, we got out of jail”, “Glad we got the point but sadly this is just papering over the cracks”, “Our goal was very lucky.” “We were terrible, it was the luckiest goal we have scored all season.” Lukas Jutkiewicz equalised for the West Midlanders on 89 minutes after Joe Ralls had earlier given Cardiff the lead on 53 from the penalty spot following a Ryan Shotton foul. Zola’s solid starting XI offered little by way of a threat. “That looks like a team chosen to shut up shop”, “The initial team selection would never have scored if they played all week. Zola’s switching to two up front rescued him”, “We were dire for most of the game and deserved nothing. It was like seeing a completely different team in the last 10 minutes.” Birmingham 0 - 1 Wigan“Wigan, 23rd place. Wigan”, “What a complete and utter shambles, a completely flat performance”, “One of the worst displays I have seen”, “Tonight’s game was a must-win and we bottled it. Wigan were awful and still won. We never looked like scoring”, “That was truly an abject performance.” “It’s woeful. I’m going home.” Former Birmingham loan player Dan Burn struck the only goal of the game for the struggling visitors on 19 minutes. The manner of this loss set alarm bells ringing among City fans as much as the result itself. “The lack of organisation and a plan was genuinely frightening.” “I’m at the match tonight and I can assure you that the football is woeful, a spineless performance with absolutely no heart, fight or desire. Worse than Lee Clark”, “No central midfielders fast enough to get past a player. Our only tactic is to hit it long and hopeful to Che Adams who is just too small.” Goalkeepers and Central Defenders“Tomasz Kuszczak was man of the match by a distance against Newcastle. Any other keeper and we would have lost 3-0.” The 34-year-old former Brighton and Wolves man “is a fantastic pro and one of the most reliable members of the squad”, “He keeps going regardless of the poorer results”.  Tomasz Kuszczak“Without some of Tommy’s top-class saves we would likely be in the bottom three right now”, “How many times does he have to save our bacon?”, “His quick reactions stop quick breakthroughs on us”, “He has to come and get the ball at corners, taking everything out within five yards of our goal.” “Josh Cogley should not be in the first team. It is not his fault, it’s just blindingly obvious that he isn’t ready, least of all out of position as a centre-back.” The 21-year-old youth product “doesn’t have the tackling skill or composure to handle Championship strikers yet. He gets outmuscled far too easily”. “Move Cogley to his natural position as he has played well at right-back”, “He’s a real talent with a good cross, but struggles with the physicality of the league”, “Zola’s on the verge of destroying the kid’s development, a promising young full-back as one of three centre-halves and making mistakes.” “Krystian Bielik looked class against Newcastle? Why on earth has he not been playing?” The 19-year-old ex-Legia Warsaw man arrived on loan from parent club Arsenal in January. “He has power, pace, great vision for marking and tracking runs and he can pass the ball out. He’s absolutely class.” “Bielek has shown more positional intelligence and reading of the game than our other defenders”, “He offers a height advantage and is no slough with the ball at his feet”, “He adds some height and steel and he can help defend set pieces better”, “This Arsenal dude looks to be a really class act.” “When you spend £9 million in a single January transfer window and the answer to the question is still Paul Robinson, you know something is screwed up.” The 38-year-old ex-Bolton defender “is a wily player but is old and slow now. He often gets caught on the wrong side of younger, stronger opponents”. “Robinson rarely lets the club down when called upon. It’s ridiculous that he is called upon at all”, “His fight and enthusiasm cannot be questioned but in every game, he makes one serious error that often allows the other team to score”, “He is outpaced when starting a foot ahead of most strikers.” Ryan Shotton“Shotton has been a liability lately.” The 28-year-old summer addition from Stoke “is clearly a player who has suffered from being asked to play a mile out of his comfort zone, with a slow short player on his left and a short inexperienced player on his right. No wonder he keeps making mistakes.”  “Shotton is used to playing in a tall back four with a solid partner like [the injured] Michael Morrison beside him”, “He was awesome under Rowett, now he looks scared and he makes mistakes”, “Up to December he was our best player. It looks like there is a mistake in him every time he has the ball.” Wing-Backs and Wingers“The impending return of Jacques Maghoma is a bonus.” The 29-year-old former Owl has been out lately with a knee injury. “He has a good work ethic along with the fitness levels to be a good wing-back”, “He will track back and help his full-back while offering a good strong threat down the wing.” “Maghoma’s biggest problem is inconsistency. He can be brilliant one game and then the complete opposite in the next one, before taking a few games to look the part again”, “He doesn’t always know when to release the ball. He’s always after that extra feint or he stops and checks back.” “Cheick Keita sums up Zola for me, all flash and not a lot of result.” The 20-year-old January arrival from Italian side Virtus Entella “is sublimely skilful but has disturbingly little end product”, “As much as I like him, he is not a defender. He loses the ball and doesn’t track back”, “Keita cannot defend.”  Cheick Keita v Sone Aluko (Fulham)“I love Keita’s flair on the ball”, “He has all the attacking ability of any top left winger in this division but the jury is out on whether he can make it as a defender. He lacks the discipline, the marking and the tackling ability”, “He defends as if he is a kid being told to do something he has no interest in.” “We look much more solid with Jonathan Grounds in there.” The 29-year-old ex-Oldham left-back “is one of our most consistent performers this season”, “His distribution is often erratic but his aerial dominance is a real advantage playing in or alongside our centre-backs”, “He is reliable and solid.” “Grounds adds so much balance to our side”, “He doesn’t have enough attacking flair to be a natural wing-back and is a poor footballer at this level, but he has been solid under Zola”, “He is good giving players no space when in position, but he drifts forward as a wing-back and play breaks past him.” “Kerim Frei is technically in a different league to what we have”, “It looks like he can play but he doesn’t have the pace or strength to have any effect on the game whatever his qualities.” The 23-year-old one-time Fulham winger arrived from Besiktas in January and has featured from the bench. “Frei’s most natural position is coming off the flanks, a position we are not playing at the moment with attacking wing-backs”, “He is creative, skilful, unpredictable and pacy but leaves us vulnerable cutting inside as a wing-back”, “Our players are not on his wavelength, often misreading his runs.” Emilio Nsue“Nsue has objectively made our defence worse, although I think he could be a great winger in this league.” The 27-year-old January signing from Middlesbrough “is awesome going forward but weak defensively”, “He is a great addition with his runs but he has to pick the times when he is attacking.”  Emilio Nsue playing for former club Middlesbrough and Wolves' Jeremy Helan“Unless Nsue learns when to go forward, when to track back and also learns how to beat people the he’s not for me”, “He gets into great positions but the central midfielders keep failing to spot him”, “When he is good he is excellent, but he often struggles to beat his man and get a decent cross in.” Central Midfielders“When Stephen Gleeson sits in front of the back four and keeps it simple he is very effective. The issue is that he disappears and instead of shielding the backline and moving it on simply, he just isn’t there where he needs to be and the game passes him by”, “He is a massive weakness in midfield.”  Stephen Gleeson“I would put my cocker spaniel in ahead of Gleeson, at least he can run and bite.” The 28-year-old ex-Milton Keynes man “has no influence on our play at all”, “He is too careless in possession and he rarely wins the ball back”, “He bottles tackles. How can you protect the defence if you don’t tackle?” “Robert Tesche does a solid job at the base of the diamond, not spectacular but keeps us together.” The 29-year-old former Forest midfielder “does the unspectacular stuff well, closing down. He covers the ground well and keeps things simple”, “He does a great job of breaking up play with minimum fuss.” “Tesche lacks composure on the ball at times, aimlessly hitting high balls forward almost every time he gets the ball”, “The number of times he receives the ball and sends it back to the player who sent it to him is so frustrating, especially when he has time and space to turn and advance with the ball.”  Robert Tesche playing for former club Nottingham Forest“Maikel Kieftenbeld is OK in a holding role but his passing lets him down at times.” The 26-year-old former Groningen holding midfielder “is average at best and a possible long-tern squad player”, “He is aggressive but lacks creativity and a poor passer, a shadow of the player he was last season.” “Kieftenbeld can be a liability with some wild challenges, he’s another who dwells on the ball too long”, “He does little creatively but gets us in trouble with late fouls”, “His form took a massive dip at the wrong time just after Christmas, but he has saved us more points than most of our players.” “I like David Davis because when he has a good game for us, the whole team tends to. He gets stuck in and you can’t ask for much more commitment.” The 26-year-old ex-Wolves player “makes up for his lack of talent with heart and desire”, “He’s an absolute beast and a simply massive player for us.”  David Davis“Every side needs a David Davis”, “He has improved the technical side of his game while maintaining his application. He’s the only player willing to take a game by the scruff of the neck and beat it into submission”, “Davis gives every single ounce of toil and sweat, charging around as he always does.” Craig Gardner“Gardner is not the player to operate in behind the striker. We need someone more mobile with a burst of pace.” The 30-year-old joined on loan from West Brom in January. “He’s no number 10. He should be box-to-box in the middle, slap bang in the engine room and bombing up and down.” “I don’t think Gardner’s suited to this role. He seems to wait for knock-downs at the edge of the box rather than anticipating Jutkiewicz’s flick-ons. He doesn’t have the energy to close down defenders in possession either”, “An attractive, stylish player who doesn’t exactly suit Zola’s tactical mould.” Strikers“Greg Stewart has had a few chances but he’s not made of the right stuff for the Championship.” The 27-year-old summer arrival from Dundee “has so much talent in terms of touch, technique and ball control but it doesn’t lead to tangible results. As a creative player, that is something he has to offer.” “Jerome Sinclair is utterly useless.” The 20-year-old Watford January loan arrival “has been inept for us”, “A last-gasp signing who has shown next to nothing”, “He is lightweight, doesn’t have a striker’s instinct and his holding play is unimpressive”, “He goes missing 99 per cent of the time”, “A dud.” “We have missed Clayton Donaldson’s presence up top as he causes opposition defences problems.” The 33-year-old ex-Brentford man appeared as a substitute against Newcastle having been injured since December. “His link-up and holding play are very good. He is mobile and works his socks off.”  Clayton Donaldson“Age is catching up with Donaldson now”, “He has been injured more than he has been fit in the last two years”, “He isn’t up to it now. He misses chances but more frustrating is how often he falls over. A big man like him should be shrugging off defenders but he just goes down when he gets touched.” “Che Adams hasn’t looked like scoring in the last few games. In fact, he doesn’t look like he will score if he stays there all day. However, he always gets in good positions so it’s only a matter of time.” The 20-year-old summer signing from Sheffield United “gives us real skill and movement with a burst of pace”. “Adams is a work in progress and tries so hard getting forward. I wish he would pull the trigger when he gets a chance”, “He’s not scoring goals but needs to play alongside Jutkiewicz as he can finish his knock-downs”, “He needs to cut out his habit of looking for penalties rather than looking for goals.” Lukas Jutkiewicz (Juke)“Juke is brilliant in the air and can bring the ball down. He’s a real focal point up front.” The 27-year-old former Burnley striker “is one of the positives in a disappointing season leading the line well, a shining light whose goals this season has been crucial in winning us some much-needed points”.  Blackburn’s Derrick Williams v Jutkiewicz“Juke doesn’t offer enough playing on his own. He needs to be paired up with Adams”, “Very rarely do our central midfielders get far enough forward to feed on his knock-downs”, “He needs to work on his finishing although we need to make more of heading ability as he rarely loses aerial duels.” Birmingham Fans’ Views on ITFC and the Game“We have Ipswich up next. They are dropping like a stone so I’m confident we will get three points in that one”, “This is a six-pointer, if we lose we are in the relegation dogfight. We must win to give us breathing space with some difficult matches coming up”, “Ipswich away is now our cup final.” “I can't believe our next match after the international break is on April Fool's Day but I suppose that is to be expected with the events of this year.” City forums don’t run extensive prediction leagues but most West Midlanders would happily take a point to keep their nascent unbeaten run going. “We need to win this game”, “It should be a battle with Ipswich also playing some dire footy. The pitch by now is also normally like a ploughed field”, “I did not realise Ipswich were so low down in the league and are equal points with us. That has made me a little more confident.” “I had a dream that we lost 2-1 based on past games at Portman Road we never get anything. We have in fact always been lucky to come away with a draw”, “We won there under Alex McLeish and should have also won last season but for the most ridiculous penalty decision I have ever seen.” “Ipswich are due a win”, “My first visit to Portman Road was in August 1975. We were losing 4-0 but pulled it back to 4-2. Blues fans were chanting [then-manager Freddie] ‘Goodwin out’. Nothing changes. We will probably lose, some fans chanting for Zola out. All part of being a Blues fan.” WebsitesThe lively and friendly Small Heath Alliance forum carries threads which link to wider media stories about City. Some informed and knowledgeable discussions can also be found on The Independent Blues Forum. Registration is needed to access some parts of this message board.
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