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GAMEDAY – Dingle dong Derby
Blues take on Wolves at St Andrew’s in the lunchtime televised clash, hoping to bounce back after last weekend’s defeat.
Wolves
Kenny Jackett could hand debuts to loanees Mike Williamson and Grant Holt, the latter of whom signed for the Molineux side only yesterday in a bid to bolster what has been a disappointing season for his side.
Wolves lie in 15th, nine points and nine places behind Blues having lost their last three games on the spin. They’ve won two of their six Championship away games with the last one coming at the end of September away to Fulham
Blues
Gary Rowett has reported a fully fit squad for the visit of Wolves. This means decisions over playing David Cotterill or Jacques Maghoma on the wing; Paul Robinson or Jonathan Spector at centre-back and David Davis or Andy Shinnie in midfield.
With these matches normally feisty affairs I’d expect former Wolves man Davis to play in midfield to keep things more combative in the middle of the park.
Ref
Peter Bankes will take charge of this game. He’s taken charge of 14 games so far this season, showing 60 yellow cards but without a red card yet. His last Blues game was the first game of the season in which nine players were booked (including Tomasz Kuszczak, Maikel Kieftenbeld, David Davis and Clayton Donaldson) and a soft penalty was awarded very late on to the visitors.
Suspension Watch
3 Yellow Cards: Maikel Kieftenbeld, Jonathan Grounds, Paul Caddis, David Davis and David Cotterill
2 Yellow Cards: Jon Toral and Stephen Gleeson.
1 Yellow Card: Tomasz Kuszczak, Michael Morrison, Paul Robinson, Clayton Donaldson, Jonathan Spector and Demarai Gray.
The cutoff date for 5 yellow cards to attract a suspension is November 30, 2015
The cutoff date for 10 yellow cards to attract a suspension is April 9, 2016
Betting Tips
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Pre-Match
Often Partisan is working in partnership with Bordesley Labour Club this season. They are based ten minutes away from St Andrew’s on Whitmore Road in Small Heath and have welcomed Blues fans over a number of years on match days.
Bordesley Labour Club will be open from 10:00am on Saturday. Pie and a pint is on offer for £4. Blues will be on live tv. Join them after the match for live updates from Jeff Stelling on Sky Sports, with a Halloween Disco from 7pm Saturday Night – everyone welcome!
Tags: Andrew Shinnie, David Cotterill, David Davis, Jacques Maghoma, Jonathan Spector, Paul Robinson, Wolves
46 Responses to “GAMEDAY – Dingle dong Derby”
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Kuszczak, Caddis, Morrison, Robinson, Grounds, Kieftenbeld, Gleeson, Davis, Gray, Maghoma, Donaldson. Blues 3 dingles 0. KRO
You got it spot on Chris!
What ever happened to Jon toral, he had a decent start to the season and hasn’t played that much since
It’s pretty much what most of us would pick it’s just Maghoma or cotterill for the wide birth .. It’s over to our manager …. I hope 3-1 but Ime going 1-1 , just an hunch . Kro
Ye I just think Maghoma is a lot faster than Cotts & he can pass a ball to a blue shirt which Cotts has problems with!!
If we are promotion contenders then we should get 3 pts this will show exactly how were progressing
Coyb kro
Hopefully it will be a good game, with the right result. Think it will be close, so I will go for 2 – 1.
I’d go with Cotts and Maghoma on the wings, with Gray coming on second half to run at them. 3-1 Blues.
Kuszczak
Caddis Morrison Robinson Grounds
Kieftenbeld Gleeson Davis
Cotterill Donaldson Maghoma
Gray starting Cotts on the bench. kro
During the summer I kept going on about Byrne from Swindon. He now plays against us. Right sided attacking player who will target Grounds for pace. Dangerous player- one to watch.
That’s the 3rd time in 4 home games Blues have looked completely un cohesive and lost. It seems that when we’re away and playing counter attacking football we’re effective.But if the emphasis is on us to carry a threat as the home side there’s nothing there.Away sides seem to have our number and just sit back,press in midfield,and wait for a mistake.
Looked poor after Robbo.slip( never wanted him to start all week). Made Williamson & co. look in total command. Did I detect a bit of arrogance about us today as surely Wolves didn’t break sweat.
Typical us ,a player asked the other week are we safe yet?well after going to hull and that today ,the answer is NO !!!!
Very poor performance today.
And how did Williamson get through our scouting net?
He looked a class player.
I wouldn’t give any of our players above a 5 or 6 today. When none of your players are playing well, you’re not going to win games. Too much giving the ball away and knocking it long for Donaldson again.
With the first goal, the cross took a deflection, which put a wicked spin on the ball, which, I think, is what decieved Robbo when the ball bounced. But, there were still other chances to get the ball away, which we spurned.
I think that, still, the manager hasn’t found a way to beat our own tactics. Almost every time a team comes and sits back, giving us possession, we invariably failed to do anything with it. The thing is, too many teams are coming to Stans and playing like that. If he doesn’t find a way to beat it, I think we’ll continue to have more sucess on our travels than at home.
Anyway, on to Blackburn… 3 points are more important than they would have been now.
I don’t understand whats happened to our “hitting them on the break” style that we had started to play, all this long ball stuff is a joke. It also seems that there are NO decent officials in this division cos once again they were crap. The only player I would give a score of 7 to today was Morrison
Teams have to come out for us to counter attack. If i was bringing a team to St Andrews,iwould do what the Dingles did today,let us have the ball in non dangerous positions and hit us on the break.
Spot on! More and more teams are doing it to us. Rowett has done a great job setting us up to play on the break… but now, him and his team need to work out a strategy to get around that. Don the thinking caps chaps.
I wouldn’t have said they let us have it in non dangerous positions, everytime we had a corner, free kick in their half or a shooting chance, one of our players gave it away & they hit us on the break, or was that what you meant, us attacking was non dangerous??!!
Got to change formation now. Too costly to let home games end in losses. Donaldson needs a partner that goes without saying. We hardly ever keep clean sheets so what do we have to lose. Against Blackburn we have to plan on scoring more than one to win as we cannot keep a clean sheet. Twin strong centre back now more than ever needed. Forget the two Robbo. goals and the romance of it all- subs.bench from now on. If Lowry is fit enough or Spector pushing then ok. All summer,all autumn we have cried out for a CH. Still in with a great chance of progressing- but please GR bite the bullet and get a match blocker like we saw today in Williamson.
Guys , stop digging to deep , your wasting mine and your own time , it’s a game of football .. Analysing in detail is truly wastefull…,behave please!! Kro
To be fair Dave, that’s what supporters do. They analyse a game afterwards, win, lose or draw. It’s what footy fans have always done, only it’s done more online now than in the pubs. :)
Well said Steve. That`s what fans do up and down the country ie analysing results and performances.But Dave`s very touchy if you don`t agree with everything he says.
In my opinion wrong team selection again. At home especially you have to play an attacking player in the number 10 role. The three midfield players kept getting in each others way and not one of them sprayed the ball around. Clayton was too isolated just like at Hull and neither the wingers or midfield players got up field fast enough to support him. Too many individual defensive mistakes which will continue to happen because the players know they are going to get picked every game. Everyone harks on about a centre half but we definitely need a left back.
I know staffs , but it just winds me up after loosing two games in a row some fans think we’re on our way down ……I just wish they would go down .. Does my fruit in !!!
Nah, I’m not worried about dropping down a few places Dave. What does worry me slightly, is that when we go a goal down and our tactics are obviously not working, we don’t seem to be able to alter things to get that goal back. We’ve only failed to score in 5 games this season… and we’ve lost them all. In 3 of those games, we’ve gone on to concede a second. Although, to be fair, you look at our bench on match days and you can’t really see anyone who can change a game to that extent.
It’s not time to hit the panic button. Wolves just did to us what we have done to plenty of other teams away from home. We are struggling to create chances at home against teams that defend in numbers and conceding the first goal is usually fatal. We haven’t really got a striker good enough to partner Donaldson to warrant going two up front from the start and weaken the midfield . Get three points against Blackburn and just put this one behind us. Yes of course we need another centre half but the chances of another Morrison becoming available for next to nothing are slim. We still might well be 6th after today and that’s still fantastic.
Rotate Robbo and Spector.When they come back in they play well for a couple of games then go off the boil.
Never looked like scoring. I have never understood posts praising Gleeson as I don’t see his skills in either tackling or passing.
We need creativity and a goalscoring threat from midfield, that means starting Toral and including Reece Brown in the team.
Davis, Kieftenbeld and Gleeson are too similar in style and offer no goal threat. Time to change the line up Gary.
Agree with you there Richard. I would also throw in the prospect of moving Grounds alongside Morrison. Blackburn offer a threat in Rhodes and winger Conway- not forgetting Duffy and Hanley in CH department. If we are to struggle now I see no reason just to enjoy the rest of the season and hope TTA and EY continue the rebuilding of the club. After today’s results we are now seeing a consistent pattern with Hull, Burnley, Middlesbrough and Derby cementing their intentions. Two weeks ago I couldn’t see a top two better than ourselves. After Hull and Wolves I feel my comments were premature.
Who plays left back if Grounds goes to centre back?
I said a week or two ago that I wasn’t thinking in terms of the P word, simply because of what’s happened in the last 2 games. As long as we remain in the top 10, that’ll serve us well. If by the January window, we’re still in with a good shout, bring in a couple of decent players and go for it. If not, save our money for the summer.
We are 6th and in the playoff positions. Why do some people want to go and make load of changes off the back of a couple of defeats. We won four on the spin before that. I know one person who won’t be making loads of changes and that’s Gary Rowett because he knows what he is doing and why we are where we are.
Shirley B….It’s our home form that’s the problem. In our last 4 games we have lost 3 without scoring and in the other game (QPR) a central defender scored from a set piece and a fortunate penalty.
We need to reassess our home line up.
I thought there was a chance of competing for the top six but we can’t repeat our away form at home for whatever reason.
We are crying out for a second commanding centre half, two better quality full backs and a second striker to enable us to to play two up front at home
So is everybody else in the division and most of them have got more money than us.
Well I don’t know if the other clubs requirements are the same as I think our is. The fact we are not acquiring them the does make the requirement not valid.
I came back from the game and watched it again on tv and we looked even worse on screen. The Dingles looked like a team low on confidence and were there for the taking but we made them look almost organised. Lots of below par performances and while I am trying to be patient with Gray, after my previous criticism of him, he needs a break from the starting line up. His energy, distribution and dead ball execution should have put him on the bench after an hour today. I know he is only young (sick of hearing this excuse) but I’ve seen 15 year olds deliver better corners than that today!!
The set pieces today were terrible.We had 8 corners which were either badly executed or drilled to the back stick where there were no blue shirts.Free kicks in promising positions were wasted
Some imagination and diversity are needed in home games.One up front at home just doesn’t work and surely there’s a case for Shinnie’s creativity instead of Davis in the number 10 role.
Totally agree with Hillfield Blues. Why the hell are we so poor from set pieces. When the ball was delivered well from corners today no one was there to nod home and there was no one there for the second ball.
The free kicks were really poor.
On another note I do not believe we are anywhere near panic mode. Yes we have had a couple of poor performances but I think we can bounce back. If we can stop in the top ten great.
Sneak into the play offs wonderful. It would be nice to sign a little more depth come January or via loans.
KRO.
Better players would get you more accomplished set pieces.
It is only worth spending in January if it turns us into top two contenders. Spending just to scrape into the top six is only worth it if we win the playoff final
What is rapidly becoming obvious with our home games is that Donaldson is no lethal threat. Nobody could ever criticise his running and Lone Ranger role but as a poacher he is not. I would prefer to see two strikers of less running at home than a foraging big man who doesn’t get much service. What has happened to Koby Arthur who posses fast direction inside the box and what plan is there at home for Brock.? Without doubt this home form needs urgent attention- without which will soon remind us of recent dark days at Stans.Draws ok but not defeats against the likes of Forest, Rotherham, Wolves -all bottom half clubs. Next up-another goal shy bottom half club.Surely GR ready to change.
We have to play two upfront at home in any formation Gary Rowett seems fit … Donaldson gets more joy and space away than at home .. At stans he gets marked out the game so using Brock as a partner would loosen the load but we all know that we won’t play that way .. We had plenty of the ball yesterday which is unusual but couldn’t do anything with it , it just didn’t happen for us .. 4-4-2 at home for me but Gary is reluctant to play it .. Let’s see Tuesday night against Blackburn , we have to have more bite up front , more threat , more invention ! Kro
Dave we could even try starting 4-1-4-1 at home against Blackburn with Kieftenbeld sat in front of the back 4 & Shinnie & Torrel pushed up behind the Don with Gray & Maghoma on the wings, that way its not too much of a change of tactics but maybe enough to fool the opposition. GR could even start Brock Madsen & bring the Don on after an hour or so. But what do I know im just a humble supporter!!
Why do we have to play two up front at home? We played 4-3-3 realistically yesterday and it made no difference.