We took a break from posting over Thanksgiving; Birmingham City in contrast were very busy. Over the last two weeks they played 3 games, and have another 2 coming up this week.
2 of the games played were at home, a 4-1 demolishing of Norwich City and a slightly less lopsided but no less impressive 2-1 defeat of Watford. The Norwich win was the 3rd straight home win scoring 4 goals. The 1 road game was at West Bromwich Albion and ended a 1-1 draw. The West Brom goal was somewhat lucky; the hosts were playing a fairly cynical defensive game which kept the Blues to just 1 shot on target until Marvin Duksch found the net in the 78th minute (his second in 2 games). City piled on the pressure after that but could not get the go-ahead score.
With the 7 points the Blues have risen to 7th in the table, out of the playoff spots on goal difference only. Those big wins have of course improved the GD to +7, which is now 4th best in the EFL Championship (Coventry City have a ridiculous +32 after 18 games). They are looking much better than just a few weeks ago and have evidently hit their stride. They are also only 5 points out of 2nd place in what is clearly a very crowded table. Coventry have a gaudy 10-point lead at the top though and look to be pretty much unreachable already.
This week they have 2 away games: at Southampton Saturday (9:00am, no US TV) and at Queens Park Rangers Tuesday (2:00pm, Paramount+). The 2 teams are 14th and 13th in the table respectively. Thus they represent an opportunity to make some more headway in the standings. Southampton have 5 key players likely to miss the game due to injuries. That makes them potentially beatable at home, although a 2-3 road loss to Millwall (2nd place) last week ended what had been a solid 4-game win streak.
QPR are a point above Southampton but have not been anywhere near as strong lately and their most recent game was a 1-3 loss to Norwich, who the Blues just humiliated. Full points are definitely achievable from this one.
As for the chances of further improvement in the standings, Ipswich Town, right above the Blues in 6th, have to play the aforementioned leaders Coventry tomorrow and Stoke City (4th) Wednesday. Bristol City in 5th are a point better than Birmingham with a +6 GD. They play Millwall tomorrow and a struggling Leicester City (16th) Wednesday. That certainly opens the door for the Blues to continue their progress.
Off the field, Birmingham City received yet another fine, this time for the half-time melee with Hull City during the team’s only home loss this season. With the fines mounting, this one was £115,000 ($153,000). Still, that’s chump change for Tom Wagner.
Other than that, a lot of the team’s recent improvement can be traced to James Beadle, who has started in goal for the club’s last 10 games. With the 21-year-old the team has a 5-3-2 record and allowed 10 goals while keeping 3 clean sheets. Before that they had gone 4-1-3 and allowed 10 goals in those 8 games. He is on loan from Brighton & Hove Albion, but it’s likely the Blues will try to keep him at season’s end.
Finally, the January transfer window is not that far off and manager Chris Davies has already made it very clear that the team will be looking to bolster its roster ahead of the second half of the season. As to who they might be interested in, no indications have been given. We shall see.
