Drawing The Curtains …

Last updated : 04 September 2010 By Richard Barker

The day that Barack Obama addressed the US people to confirm the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom, and the day that drilling finally started to save 33 Chilean miners trapped underground.

As such, news that Blues signed three new players needs to be put into a little bit of perspective.

On Monday night Blues were linked (apparently with some actual justification) to Alexander Hleb, Martin Jiranek, Jean Beausejour and Armand Traore.

When, by Tuesday evening, Blues had signed three out of the four of them, I was delirious with excitement.  Not only had Blues been the busiest team in the Premier League, but they’d added apparent quality in areas in which they were lacking.

“Need some more quality”, we cried.  Hleb was brought in.

“Defensive cover, please?” – in comes Jiranek.

“We’ve got no pace out wide”, we moaned.  Beausejour arrived.

I’ve always admired Hleb.  He’s long been my favourite Belarusian.  Whether it’s his monkeyish good looks or the fact that if you signed him from ‘Neckar’ on Pro Evolution Soccer 2004 you knew no one would ever be able to tackle him (people may argue that you can’t judge a player based on a computer game, but their argument would be wrong), there was always something about him.  You don’t play for the likes of Barcelona, Blues and Arsenal if you’re not very good.

Hleb’s undoubted talent is his on-the-ball ability.  His dribbling is Messi-esque in that he can manipulate the ball to the point that it looks like it’s tied to a piece of string attached to his foot.  Clearly he’s not the finisher that Messi is and he has other weaker areas, but he should be a huge asset.  Quite where Alex McLeish will play him is another matter, but I suspect it’ll be out wide.  Hleb doesn’t necessarily fit in with what McLeish likes in the middle of the park (if playing 4-4-2), so I suspect he’ll be out wide or one of three in the middle, supporting a lone striker.  He should do fine in either role, and his signing really is a coup.

We all know what happened with Charles N’Zogbia (rubbish on Pro Evo, incidentally).  The fact is, N’Zogbia is such a little tosspot that within a year he’d have been going on strike and chasing a move to Marseilles, Qatar, Stoke, Celtic or anyone who’d pay him a bit more cash.  He has a reputation that is well earned.  So, if you paid £9.5 million for him, within a year or so you’d have problems anyway, so why not get Hleb in for a year instead?  Better player, more experienced, not French – a great deal all round.

Beausejour is a little more unknown but had a decent World Cup for a very good Chile side.  The N’Zogbia thing highlighted that McLeish was after pace out wide (anyone who watches Blues will appreciate why) and Beausejour appears to be the answer.  There’s no doubt that he’s something of a risk, but as someone who’s actively encouraged McLeish to try and take more risks, it looks like one worth taking.  As I’ve said several times previously, if it doesn’t work, no one will hold a gun to McLeish’s head.  They’ll just stab his dog.

Jiranek looks to be another decent addition.  I confess to not knowing much about him other than what I’ve read, but he’s got a decent pedigree.  I’m not going to say that you can’t play in the Champions League year after year and win a lot of caps for your country if you’re crap because I’ve seen Torsten Frings, but it suggests he should be ok.

Blues were desperately short of defensive cover, especially at centre half, so it’s a useful signing.  Scott Dann and Roger Johnson may look over their shoulders and think it’s a bit unfair that pressure’s being put on them now, but they’ve had it too easy anyway with only Liam Ridgewell, Fraser Kerr and Garry O’Connor as back-up, so sod them – put pressure on them.  Make them play.  Make them work.  Dann’s been excellent so far this season, but perhaps it’ll be a kick up Johnson’s backside to add to the beating Kevin Davies gave him on Sunday.

Obviously Traore slipped away, seemingly preferring to move to Juventus for some inexplicable reason.  Once he indicated that he had a preference for the Old Lady it’s understood Peter Pannu offered to take him down The Anchor pre-match next week, but it wasn’t enough to clinch the deal.  I’d have still liked to have got a left-back in, but defying logic, Liam Ridgewell has made the position his own and you can’t have everything.

I think the best thing about the three signings is the buzz that it’s given everyone.  Things have still been stale around the club – no doubt a hangover given a lot of people’s views on the old board.  The new board have tried to remedy that, but have generally failed as the 21,000 crowd against Blackburn showed.  There’d been further murmurs of discontent given how early transfer activity was followed by ten to twelve weeks of inactivity, but all of a sudden three (seemingly) decent signings on the last day of the transfer window and everyone’s buzzing.  Hopefully it’ll be reflected in the crowd for the Liverpool game.  Hleb himself is a draw, given his quality and experience.

Since the Pandiani/Pennant deadline day, Blues have tended to be linked with all sorts of players in the 24 hours before the curtains are drawn, but generally fans have ended up disappointed in that no one signs or it’s Mehdi Nafti.  This time it’s different though.  Blues were linked to some exciting players and then signed them too.  Credit to all concerned for that and those sceptical fans should be encouraged enough to hopefully start filtering back to St Andrews.

It is, however, strange how Blues (like one or two others) did so much business on the last day of a transfer window open several months.  Of course it’s always been the case that last-minute deals are done, but the three Blues did were somewhat out of the blue.  McLeish is often criticised for not having a Plan B/C/D/H/Z, but appears to have done here.

I think it is worth preaching a note of caution though – the players signed by McLeish (and the way that it happened so quickly) appears to go against the grain a little.  Of course he’s come out and said that he had been tracking the players for a while – he’s not going to say he signed them on Pro Evo over the weekend and thought they looked decent enough for his Master League team.  However, he often harps on about all the checks he likes to do on players and all the rest of it, and one hopes that he’s comfortable with those he’s brought in.  I don’t mind – I’m all for signing loads of cool sounding players on a whim.  McLeish may still harbour some reservations though, perhaps.

Hleb, for example, is in some ways the type of player that McLeish has referred to in the past as “possibly disrupting the dressing room”.  Now, I’m not for one second suggesting Hleb is a trouble-maker – there’s no indication of that.  He is someone who is clearly a step up from what Blues already had though.  He’ll be getting paid a fortune (by both Blues and Barcelona) and when Roger Johnson berates him for not tracking his man, you couldn’t blame him for thinking “yeah, alright ex-Wycombe Wanderer – you tell ME what to do”.  I doubt it’ll happen and have always admired Hleb’s attitude, but it’s just an observation that it is the kind of player McLeish has shyed away from in the past.

As for Beausejour and Jiranek, McLeish does have a habit of signing what he knows, be it a player he knows (Ferguson, McFadden) or be it a British player who’ll have an attitude he knows (Bowyer, Dann, Johnson).  Again, I’m not suggesting that it will end up as a disaster, but you wonder whether there’s a chance he could be out of his comfort zone in signing a Czech centre half and a Chilean winger.

Beausejour is a highly rated, young(ish) international from South America with a good record both internationally and in the Mexican league.  McLeish has signed someone like that before, and we know how that turned out.  It would appear McLeish was never really comfortable with Christian Benitez in his side, for whatever reason.

McLeish has his principles and (rightly or wrongly) he sticks by them.  I just hope that he hasn’t felt he’s had to get out of his comfort zone in signing these people because he couldn’t get his other choices in.

The fact is that all the excitement is justified (hell, I’m excited), but people shouldn’t get too carried away quite yet.  None of these players have pulled on a Blues shirt  (like thousands of fans) and whilst it is easy to get carried away, we’ll just have to wait and see how successful the three of them are.

What I will say though is that, on paper, they’re three cracking signings and it’s great for there to this buzz amongst Blues fans.  I, like many others, am genuinely excited now and cannot wait to see Hleb being let loose against Liverpool and then Beausejour, Jiranek and Zigic being let loose against MK Dons.

It has been said on many occasions recently, including by me, that Blues needed to add three or four more player to the squad.  They’ve done that and they look to be pretty decent acquisitions.  In fact, that may do them a disservice – they look good additions.  There are still one or two areas of the squad that are a little weak, but you can’t complain about it too much.

I’ve said many times over the past few months that Blues’ summer activity could only be judged on 1st September, so here I am judging it.  As far as I’m concerned the board have done a good job for McLeish over the summer, and McLeish will obviously have played his part too.  I don’t think he can have too many complaints at the squad he’s put together now.  It’s up to him to get that squad performing now, and I have no doubt that he will.

Here’s to an enjoyable season …

Source: http://ronsatossa.wordpress.com/