Often Partisan

GAMEDAY – Wednesday on a Saturday…

Gary Rowett is looking to continue Birmingham City’s fine start to 2016 with a seventh game unbeaten against Sheffield Wednesday today. Having lost 3-0 on Boxing Day to the Owls at Hillsborough, Blues will be anxious to get their revenge on their top six rivals.

Sheffield Wednesday

The Owls come into the game on the back of a three game winless streak in all competitions. They lie one place ahead of Blues on goal difference with their only win in their last nine games away from home being on January 2 against Fulham.

Tom Lees and Michael Turner are in contention after injury while winger Aiden McGeady could make his first start having signed on loan from Everton.

Blues

Jon Toral should be fit having taken a knock in the match against Bristol City but the game is too soon for David Cotterill and Nicolai Brock-Madsen who are both recovering from hamstring injuries.

Blues may bring in Diego Fabbrini for his first start since signing for the club permanently in place of Toral, with Jacques Maghoma and Will Buckley both also vying for starting slots. Blues are likely to go 4-3-3 again which means David Davis will probably keep his place in midfield.

Blues are going for a fifth straight home league win for the first time since 2003 and for a fourth consecutive clean sheet for the first time since 2006 today.

Ref

James Adcock is in charge of this game. He’s been in the middle for 19 games so far this season, showing 47 yellow cards but no reds. His last Blues game was the corresponding game from last season, when Sheffield Wednesday won 2-0 in September 2014. Paul Robinson and David Edgar joined one Wednesday player in the book that day.

Suspension Watch

One red card (three match suspension served): James Vaughan

8 Yellow Cards: Maikel Kieftenbeld
7 Yellow Cards: Stephen Gleeson
5 Yellow Cards: Jonathan Grounds
4 Yellow Cards: David Davis, Jon Toral, Paul Robinson and Paul Caddis
3 Yellow Cards: David Cotterill
2 Yellow Cards: Jonathan Spector, Michael Morrison, James Vaughan and Neal Eardley
1 Yellow Card: Tomasz Kuszczak, Clayton Donaldson, Andy Shinnie, and Shane Lowry

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

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.

Today Bordesley Labour Club are offering a pie and pint for £4 while all hot drinks are under £1. Live sky sports is on tv while customers can take advantage of free wifi from sky cloud. BLC are now taking subs and new members for the new year. Entertainment on Saturday 13th February is 2 Tone Review Featuring music from The Stranglers, Madness etc. Free entry, all welcome.

Competition

Often Partisan has linked up with new BCFC sponsors Sportego to bring to you a new competition with the prize of a signed away shirt. Simply create an account at www.bcfcfantasyfootball.com, pick who you think the best five players will be in today’s game – and the person with the best combination of five players wins. Can you beat my picks?

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50 Responses to “GAMEDAY – Wednesday on a Saturday…”

  • Kazakblue says:

    Greeting from Saudi Arabia, a hard fought game today I think, but Blues to come out on top 2-1, hopefully in front of the biggest home gate of the season, will be tuning in on the Blues Wall later, KRO

  • StaffsBlue says:

    Kuszczak

    Caddis Morrison Robinson Grounds

    Gleeson Kieftenbeld

    Buckley Fabbrini Maghoma

    Donaldson

    Blues 2-1 Sheff Wed

  • ChrisG says:

    Dan if you have any powers with god, can you get the rain turned off please!!

  • Dave Mann says:

    Should be a good crowd today and a game that will tell us a lot about our ambitions for the rest of the season , not a must win but surely a must not lose game with Wednesday ….we were bloody awful at there place Boxing Day and with our new found home form let’s hope it’s five wins in a row in the league and a push the playoffs bang on target ??? 2-1 I think . KRO

  • Blue suede shoes says:

    Massive game for the boys, nothing like a good old 6 pointer! I wouldn’t go so far in saying it’s make or break today but with the owls being the only top six side we will face for the next 4 – 5 games we really need to keep this forward momentum! Will be interested to see if fabs gets the nod over toral with him not training but other than that no changes needed for me. KRO

  • Richard Granfield says:

    It will interesting to see the first half performance today, because recent ones have been dour affairs.
    Will Gary start with two proper wingers instead of Davis? I hope so.

  • Your right Richard G it would be nice to hit the boards running , instead of giving the opposition 4 or 5 attempts on target , I think if other teams were as accurate with the shots on target as blues we would be behind at half time more , come on SUPER BLUES.

  • Zimblue says:

    “can you get the rain turned off please!!” South Africa is in desperate need of rain so kindly send your surplus here.
    Seriously, will the heavy rain and wind affect the playing surface?
    I suspect it will be 2-2.

  • Shirley Blue says:

    It’s going to get very windy by midday according to the forecast along with heavy rain could affect things. We will need to keep the ball on the deck anyway against a big Sheffield Wednesday team and the wind will make that even more important. Sheffield will be bringing a big following so I would be very disappointed if it wasn’t 20000+ today despite the weather. It’s a must not lose game today but we can win it.

  • Pods says:

    Morning All Blues Fans
    I was wrong with my prediction last week at Bristol, I thought we came away with a deserved draw.
    To days game will be even harder, but i do fancy us to win by at least two goal. Donaldson back on the score sheet.
    Toral to play with Maghoma in for Davis, the only change.
    KRO

  • Paul says:

    It’s our day Mr blue sky started in the barber’s

  • Womble Joe says:

    Put another cheeky fiver on the same bet as last week

    Fab to score first Blues 2-1 at 60-1

  • Shirley Blue says:

    I guess we will all have at least half any eye on what’s going on at the Vile. Beat Norwich and they could be 7 points off safety if a couple of other results go their way. They will think they might still have an outside chance with 13 games to go. Lose and they are as good as down. Very unusual for us both to be at home at the same time.

  • Bluey says:

    I think we`ll lose 3-0.And the vile will beat Norwich 2-1.

  • StaffsBlue says:

    Toral is in. Maghoma is in.

  • rhees says:

    Happy with point and vile loss myself

  • Much better first half blues , the Don is top of the class again …

  • Shirley Blue says:

    Well we gave that away and the ref didn’t help. Their big number 9 made the difference when he came on as sub. We were coping pretty well defensively before he came on. Very much with the benefit of hindsight but maybe Davis would have been the better sub for Toral because we got carved open in midfield at times. A bad day but a great chance to get back to winning ways at Rotherham next weekend.

    • StaffsBlue says:

      I thought that when Nuhiu came on, Rowett would combat his height by bringing on Shotton. I think we missed a trick there. Also, I felt that, if the ref could give them anything, he was bl00dy well going to. With two clear fouls in the lead up to their second goal, that feeling was vindicated. But, he’s not the first poor ref we’ve had down StAns this season and, without doubt, he won’t be the last.

      But, it’s only 3 points dropped and we’re still only 3 points from the play offs, with 16 games to go.. and some very winnable games in there.

      • ChrisG says:

        Have to disagree with you slightly there staffs, I thought the ref had a good game up to their 1st goal, maybe if Fabbrini had passed the ball rather than doing his Tom Daley impressions we might have got something out of the game, I thought Torel played extremely well on a really difficult pitch & have to ask was it coincidence that within 5-10 mins of him going off we were 2-1 down?. When their goalie went off injured we should have peppered their goal with shots but as usual we sat back, ok we got 1 goal before half time but our finishing let us down big time, we should have been 3-0 up before they scored.

  • Tony says:

    Last time I had a pie and a pint it cost £1.75

  • .KC says:

    My humble opinion trying to be positive and not have the Saturday night miseries is we played very well for 70+ minutes but then fell asleep not helped by a big lump coming on who whose clever play had no relationship with his body, Toral going off injured and some bad refereeing based on perception decisions rather than reality. However we created enough in the first 70+ minutes to have put another 1 or 2 in the net and put the game beyond Sheff Wed whose defence looked dodgy to me when we were in the ascendancy. Not a disaster but one we should certainly have won and threw away the points. Very difficult for the subs to come on and make a difference and we then looked very flat at the front.

  • We still are not getting enough shots on target , SW had one more shot on target than us and scored the winner , you have to be in it to win it so they say ,


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