After a week off for the international break—a much-needed break, frankly—Birmingham City returns to action in the EFL Championship tomorrow (9:00am, no US TV) as they welcome Hull City to St. Andrew’s.
The Blues are on a 29-game unbeaten run at home and will have their work cut out to extend that streak. Hull is only one spot better than Birmingham in the table (15th). On points they are both tied with 4 other teams for 11th; Birmingham has the worst goal difference of that entire group. All 6 teams also have a 3-3-3 record.
Hull are not too far from League One; they last played in that division in 2020-21 and have been in the Championship ever since (they were last in the Premier League 2016-17). They have flirted with relegation again at least twice, barely avoiding it last season with a final weekend draw and escaping the drop on GD. The coaching situation has been pretty chaotic; current manager Bosnian Sergej Jakirović came in at the beginning of this season and is the 6th gaffer this decade. His personal coaching resume is likewise pretty wild; this is his 8th head coaching job in 9 years. Most of his career has been in Croatia with short stops in Slovenia and Turkey.
The visitors’ 3 wins were over Sheffield United, Southampton and Oxford United. Sheffield are dead last, the other 2 are 17th and 22nd respectively. That’s hardly impressive, but the Blues did manage to draw with Sheffield’s other team, Wednesday, who are second from bottom. Hull’s biggest threat is forward Oli McBurnie, who has a very impressive 7 goals and 4 assists in a total of 10 games this season. There were rumors that Birmingham was interested in him over the summer (he was released by Spanish club UD Las Palmas) but the team has said those were unfounded.
Wednesday, incidentally, could prove to be somewhat of an issue for the EFL. They have, it seems, been financially mismanaged for much of this year, if not longer, including missing payroll back in March. The UK tax authorities have filed a “winding-up petition” on the club. That’s the British term for an involuntary liquidation. If that happens, the club will be automatically expelled from the EFL.
The expulsion would cause all the team’s results to be expunged from the record. Their record to date is 1-5-3. Leicester City, Stoke City, Swansea City, Bristol City and Coventry City would all lose 3 points; the Blues, Wrexham and QPR would lose 1. At the end of the season that won’t matter but right now Leicester and Bristol would both fall in the table, Bristol taking the worst hit and dropping to 16th. Additionally, one relegation spot would be removed from both the Championship and League One to keep both at 24 teams; reducing relegation from League Two is at the board’s discretion, who can also add a promotion spot.
Back to this weekend’s game: the Blues have been hit badly by the injury bug. Currently, Bright Osayi-Samuel, Willum Willumsson, Marvin Ducksch, Ethan Laird, Lee Buchanan and Scott Wright are all unavailable. Demarai Gray, who has been a standout for the team, was held back from international play with Jamaica last week but that was apparently precautionary. Chris Davies’ lineup options will be severely limited.
Off the pitch Birmingham found out the fine for the altercation with Ipswich Town earlier this season. It is £100,000 ($134,000). That seems hefty but is actually £25,000 less than expected as this was the team’s 5th fine this calendar year for similar incidents. Basically, the EFL went really easy on the team for no apparent reason. ipswich were hit for just £24,000.
