Legion fans should have known what was coming on Sunday. After a 19-game unbeaten home streak Birmingham City fell to a rough 2-3 loss at St. Andrew’s on Saturday. The worst of it was experienced by centerback Jack Robinson who scored an own goal by getting in the way of a foot save by keeper James Beadle. He was taken down by a blatant foul later in the first half but got no free kick, resulting in something of a melee on the field (it also led to yet another misconduct charge by the league and presumably an even bigger fine than the last one). With 30 minutes remaining in the game the Blues were denied an obvious corner kick and he got a second yellow for dissent. That was his second red card in just 7 appearances this season and he is becoming quite a liability.
He wasn’t the only player to be done poorly by the referee, though; Ethan Laird was shoved down hard in the Hull 18 early in the game but was not awarded the penalty kick.
Despite being down a man for a third of the game, Birmingham was dominant, outshooting Hull 19-10 with 8 shots on target and holding 65% of the possession. They even came close several times to tying it up after the ejection but were unable to finish the chances.
The Blues had a Tuesday evening game at Preston North End, a much different affair and with a totally different outcome. The visitors came away 1-0 winners in a game with just 5 shots between the two teams and only 1 on target. That, coming off the head of German defender Phil Neumann, was the decider in the game. Birmingham City also had just 38% possession, virtually the opposite of the weekend’s performance.
The Blues are now 13th overall, 2 places below Preston and 6 below Hull. That’s a slight improvement over last week’s standings After 11 games they are 10 points off the lead (held by Coventry City) but only 3 out of the playoff spots (#3 through #6).
This Saturday they head south to Bristol City (9:00am, Paramount+). This will be another tough test; Bristol are sitting in 4th right now, 4 points better than the Blues. A result here will be huge. The team is still struggling with injury issues and Bright Osayi-Samuel will be serving a yellow card suspension.
All of that will only add to the pressure manager Chris Davies finds himself under. Rumors are that he has until the next international break to show some improvement in form. That’s just 3 games away. After the trip to Bristol the Blues have two home games against Portsmouth (17th) and Millwall (3rd). Just how valid those rumors are is unclear; owner Tom Wagner earlier this month expressed confidence in Davies and is entirely aware of the competitiveness of the Championship and of the injury situation.
