Blues 0 Norwich City 1 .. Report
Last updated : 17 October 2006 By Richard Barker
I thought I was depressed after Ipswich at home. I thought I was depressed after Leeds away. I thought I was depressed after Leicester at home. I thought I was depressed after Luton away. I thought I was depressed after last season's shambles and the subsequent relegation. Well, heaven knows I'm miserable now.
I'm not going to go into much detail during this report for many reasons - it's late and I want to go to bed, I'm slowly running out of innovative and witty ways of saying the same old thing, and mainly, because I do feel miserable, because there's that air about this evening that suggests that we have just witnessed the end of an era.
In some ways there's definitely been an end of an era tonight. After the final whistle the Blues fans turned on Steve Bruce, in numbers, for the first time. That's the end of an era in a sense. What needs to happen now is for Bruce to be dignified and walk away from the job and end this particular era in both the club's life and his life.
If you could pick a 90 minute period to summarise the past couple of years under Steve Bruce, then this was a fine example. Eleven Birmingham City players were picked in eleven different positions. That was it. There was no system, pattern to their play, indication of having worked on anything in training, etc, etc. Blues did not have one spell, even for five minutes, in which they bossed the game. Not once from a throw-in, corner, free-kick, goal-kick, anything at all, could you see what we were trying to do. There was no shape, no cohesion, nothing. There was nothing from Blues. Absolutely nothing. This was by far their poorest performance of the season - by a distance in fact. Blues were like an empty shell of a team.
Norwich, on the other hand, were a team with probably less talent on paper (though in fairness, they do still have some fair players) who were organised and knew the job they were doing. They had a plan. They played to that plan. They got three points. Job done for them. They played with a noticeable formation (the 4-5-1/4-3-3 one employed by a fair few teams) and with players knowing their jobs - Darren Huckerby and Lee Croft both performed the wide midfield/supporting strikers roles admirably, Dickson Etuhu got forward from midfield superbly, Robert Earnshaw did a fine job (finishing aside) as a lone-ish striker (though Huckerby, Croft and Etuhu all supported him very well), and Youssef Safri anchored the midfield with authority. YOU COULD SEE WHAT THEY WERE SET UP TO DO! It really was that simple! They did it well, and there you go. As I say, job done. Had Earnshaw finished as he has done for most of this season, and had Maik Taylor not handled pretty well, this could comfortably been 4-0 or 5-0 to the visitors, and you couldn't really begrudge them that, as they came with a plan, stuck to it, did their jobs and got the result. You can only say 'fair play' to that.
Everything about Blues was flat tonight - the atmosphere in the ground was flat, the players were flat, the tempo of the game (Tempo?! What tempo!?) was flat, but tellingly the Blues bench was flat. They'd run out of ideas. I have to say, as I said earlier, you got a feeling that that was very much that. You really and truly have to hope so.
I've said a million times (well, maybe about ten, but enough) that I like Steve Bruce as a man, and I do. I can only hope and pray that he walks away now though. People turned on him tonight, but he still got off somewhat lightly. Things will begin to turn nasty unless he accepts that it's over - and it is now. Even after Luton, you sensed that as remote as it seemed, there was still the slightest chance that a good run would change things. That's gone now, after tonight. I'm afraid to say that the relationship's dead, and we all know that when a relationship's dead, there's little point in carrying on for the sake of it. Both parties are going to get hurt, and it's only going to make things worse. So, Sally from Devizes, you need to sit down with your husba... oops, sorry, drifted into another form of writing that I do there.
Still, you get my point...
So, I don't know what else there is to say, other than looking at Steve Bruce tonight you saw a lonely, dejected, beaten man, and none of us - regardless of what people might say - would wish that upon him. It's time for him to go now - he must know that.
So, please, Steve, leave now before you completely sour the memories of Stern John's winner at Millwall, Darren Carter's penalty in Cardiff, Clinton Morrison's equaliser at Anfield, Geoff Horsfield's strike to make it 3-0 at home to the Villa, Horsfield's strike to make it 2-0 at Villa Park, Morrison's goal at home to Liverpool, Christophe Dugarry versus Southampton, Christophe Dugarry away at Charlton, well, just Christophe Dugarry, Stern John's equaliser at Villa Park, Emile Heskey's winner at home to Arsenal, Dunn and Morrison scoring at Villa Park, Heskey and Gray scoring at home to Villa, etc, etc, etc. There are so many memories that you have brought us that will be cherished, but now, by dragging this on, those memories will slowly fade, and you'll only be remembered for what's happening now. You will not reverse this - it's gone. Walk away with your head held up high as a manager that has brought Birmingham City Football Club more good memories than most of the rest of it's managers put together, and don't let your stubborness, or even foolishness, ruin that. It's over.
