Last Sunday Birmingham City were looking to advance in the storied FA Cup, playing in the 4th round against the visiting Premier League side Leeds United. They came very close, but couldn’t quite get the job done.
The home-standing Blues dominated the first half, Jay Stansfield coming especially close to scoring, but the teams went to the locker room all square at 0-0. A poor clearance allowed Leeds to take a lead early in the second half. They held it until the 89th minute when Patrick Roberts scored from long distance off a corner. That sent the game to extra time and although Birmingham continued to have the better chances no further goals were scored and the game went to a shootout. Leeds ended up winning that 4-2, the game-winner being scored by the USMNT’s Brenden Aaronson.
Overall, the Blues were the stronger side, outpossessing and outshooting the visitors. They exit the tournament with their head held high.
That leaves the team to focus on the Championship. Right now they are 11th, having dropped a spot due to play elsewhere in the league while they were on cup duty. They are still only 2 points out of the playoff spots although that could change with the result of the Blackburn-Preston North End game in progress as this article is being written (the score is 0-0 late in the first half).
The Blues’ own job this week is to play Norwich City away (Saturday, 9:00am, no US TV). Norwich are 17th in the table and will presumably be without their biggest star, another USMNT stalwart, Josh Sargent. Sargent (who turned 26 today) was reportedly sold (also today) to Toronto FC of MLS for $22 million upfront and potential add-ons of another $5 million later. Norwich also got two months’ wages out of the deal, it appears, as Sargent was fined that much for apparently refusing to play last week, which with a monster transaction at risk seems like a smart move on his part.
Birmingham City’s lengthy injury list also looks to be getting slightly shorter with Ethan Laird and Jack Robinson both back in training at least. Paik Seung-Ho will be out, however, having dislocated his shoulder. Surgery is likely needed but he is delaying that, possibly because it would rule him out of Korea’s World Cup squad.
The only Blues activity this week was Knighthead’s sale of the women’s side…to itself. Well, sort of. The team was actually sold to Knighthead’s own parent, the Shelby Group, in order to give it more independence. This has been a fairly common event in English women’s soccer, it appears. The Blues ladies currently play in Women’s Super League 2, which is England’s second tier. They are currently 2nd in the standings, only a point above the 3rd-place Crystal Palace and a hefty 9 points adrfit to the leaders, Charlton Athletic. The top two teams are automatically promoted to the Women’s Super League and the 3rd-place team will enter a playoff with the bottom team in the Super League (which is being expanded by 2 teams to 14 this year and so has no automatic relegation), currently Leicester City.
