- Home
- Birmingham City
- Current Squad
- Adam Legzdins
- Jonathan Grounds
- Paul Robinson
- Ryan Shotton
- Maikel Kieftenbeld
- Robert Tesche
- Stephen Gleeson
- Clayton Donaldson
- Diego Fabbrini
- David Cotterill
- Rhoys Wiggins
- Che Adams
- Lukas Jutkiewicz
- Viv Solomon-Otabor
- Jacques Maghoma
- Greg Stewart
- Jonathan Spector
- David Davis
- Michael Morrison
- Tomasz Kuszczak
- Paul Caddis
- Development Squad
- Academy
- Ladies Team
- Sophie Baggaley
- Alex Windell
- Meaghan Sargeant
- Jess Carter
- Kerys Harrop
- Freda Ayisi
- Kirsty Linnett
- Bella Linden
- Andrine Hegerberg
- Abbey-Leigh Stringer
- Melissa Lawley
- Charlie Wellings
- Chloe Peplow
- Rebecca Lloyd
- Connie Schofield
- Emily Westwood
- Cheryl Edwards
- Corina Schröder
- Ashlee Brown
- Coral-Jade Haines
- Aoife Mannion
- Ann-Katrin Berger
- Out on Loan
- Former Players
- Boards and Advisors
- Appearance Data 2014/2015
- Current Squad
- Factfiles
- Series
- Sponsorship
- Website Info
- Social Media
- Contact Me
Good times in Cider Country? Yeovil Preview
Birmingham City travel to Huish Park today for their first ever competitive fixture against Yeovil in what is the Somerset team’s first home game in the second tier of English football.
Yeovil Town
Gary Johnson’s men have made a bright start to the season, beating Millwall in their opening game away at the Den before following that up with a second 1-0 win in three days against Southend in the Capital One Cup.
Johnson rested several players in the League Cup game and will likely bring back Ed Foley, James Hayter and Sam Foley to the Glovers’ starting lineup.
Blues
Lee Clark has to make some tough decisions ahead of this trip with Scott Allan’s brace in midweek putting him in contention for a start away at Huish Park. Chris Burke will also want a recall to the league side and Clark will have to either find a place for him in the 3-5-2 or change formation if he wants to accommodate the Scottish winger. Dan Burn faces the team he scored the winning goal for in last seasons League One playoff final.
Zigic (back), Hancox (groin), Spector (facial injury) and Ambrose (groin) all continue to miss out although Spector rejoins full training next week along with long-term injury Will Packwood who has made an incredible come back from a double leg break in January. David Murphy has had a setback in his recuperation from his knee injury and remains out for the next three to six weeks.
Whilst I think many are hopeful of a result I think is will be a tough game – a promoted side on a high, a good manager, a tight little ground – I think right now I’d take a draw and a performance to build on away from home.
Tags: Chris Burke, Dan Burn, Scott Allan, Yeovil Town FC
36 Responses to “Good times in Cider Country? Yeovil Preview”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I watched Yeovil a few times last season with them being near family. Paddy Madden is also a player to watch out for, reasonably pacey, but not too strong, but a jordan rhodes quality finisher.
Going to be a tough one down there!
:-)
Welcome back AJ.
I really hope that your journey out there bears fruit — for yourself, primarily, and us OP groupies as well.
:-)
Yeovil –
Lee’s earlier, mid-week comments – – referenced players that he has had an interest in, those players are now at the “Glovers”
So, he will know them well, and it should be a ‘pure-science’ tactical explanation of Lee’s skill for us to kick-off in the League.
Yeovil are riding a high.
Won AWAY at The New Den, won AWAY in the Carling….that dressing room has got to be buzzing….
A Draw to halt them, a WIN to Welcome them to the Championship would be better.
:-)
IMyself, I’d rather have Leeds Away for this match. Banana skin match.
:-)
Welcome back??? I’m still in HK dude..
Setting off to Yeovil shortly. If we are solid at the back we will give ourselves a chance. I’m gonna go for a score draw on this one, KRO
got 0-0 written all over it !! settle for a draw – play 4 5 1
I’ll go 2-2. I really can’t see a 0-0, but I’d happily be proved wrong. :)
I agree… has to be 4-5-1 or even 4-2-3-1 to give the defence a bit of extra cover.
I agree with this being a tough game, if we play as we sis against Watford then a 0-0 draw is possible.
Gary Johnson has the glovers playing tight but if Burke is found a place along with Elliott I think we can open them up. If that is the case I would go 0-2 to the Blues as I feel our defence is beginning to understand each other, I don’t think the mistakes from Tuesday will be made again this Saturday.
KRO
Match stats from BCFC.com:
“Blues have travelled to Yeovil twice before for pre-season fixtures with a 0-0 draw in 1986 and a 1-1 draw in 1997.”
0-1 Great result away though we really lack quality. The service to the strikers was poor and there was no creativity from midfield. I can’t believe Allan didn’t start after his 2 goals versus Plymouth. No Burke again. There was more quality on the bench than on show. It was painful to watch but 3 points is 3 points.
After all the years in the Prem it is very difficult to watch players relatively technically weak and not being wholly aware of what is around them so making the wrong decision and inaccurate passing
Allan was the last but one player in. Lee Clark has said a couple of times, that he’s about 3 weeks behind the rest in fitness. I would think that he’ll be used more and more as the weeks go on and he gets his fitness levels up. Clark definitely sees him in the Morrison role.
Burke doesn’t really suit the 3-5-2 formation. He needs to play wide with a supporting full back. That’s when he plays his best football. I saw him on Tuesday and was a bit disappointed. I know he ‘won’ the penalty and crossed for the winning goal, but his general play was pretty poor tbh.
They are a new squad who don’t know each others strengths yet , they have to be given time to gel. I will take flukey wins all season if it means that we don’t get relegated.
Just in from the game.On today’s performances both sides will be at the bottom end of the table come the end of the season.Therefore today was a great result because we need to beat the teams who could be fighting to stay up. plenty of hard work and running but not enough quality. Elliot and Shinnie stood out today and a lot of teams would love our bench.This begs the question,why the f*ck are they on the bench ?
2,000 brummies 1-0 away win absolutely fabulous who we are in the sh*t……cuffed too bits the result was fair one imo………..this can be the start of a good run. Not stopped singing all the way home…..scarfs flying from the car windows….. The brummies are back in town……. Kro
Bloody hell back to back wins……..
went to the game-brother got me a ticket in Yeovil end (better than not going)….agree we lacked a cutting edge and looked a little toothless-if only shinnie had made contact with his ‘swad’ instead of worrying about his hairdo!! Randolph made a top quality save to the crossbar.. superb..he will earn us many points over the season IMO,
Just got back am ecstatic!! honestly thought Yeovil deserved the draw but will take this!…
Burns MOTM for me, Thought their No 8 played well (can’t remember his name) 3 points is 3 points!
KRO SOTV
Edward Upson. Former ex-Ipswich youngster. Good midfielder.
Yes agree very good midfielder, good win though Staffsblue? :)
At least it shows we’re capable of grinding out a 1-0 when we have to. Couldn’t say that too many times in the last couple of years. A good keeper and a solid centre back makes all the difference.
So are we missing Redmond and Burke?
I mean, are we missing Redmond and Davies?
Not really doc, and we wont miss marlon….. As noted by Chris this team will get better, they will grow together…..some games might be oh my dear to watch but its results that count…..even if it just og
I have to be completely honest, I don’t think we’ve missed any of the players that have left since relegation. Shows what a good job Lee Clark is doing.
How will we not miss a proven goalscorer? I can’t see any of our strikers getting into double figures. We’re not missing Davies at the moment but i think we’ll miss Redmond.We lack some width at the moment,and i,m wondering if the reason for not playing Burke is because they’re looking to sell him. Get the wide players in so that the strikers can get into the box more. Where they’re supposed to be.
If we’re not going to play Burke,our best player,we may as well sell him and pay King’s wages for the season.
While I will agree that King is a goal scorer, people keep banging on about him being a prolific or 20 goal a season player. In 440 league games he has scored 149 goals and average of 2.95, he has only scored 20+ league goals in one season (2005/6) playing for Watford. He is a drain on LC resources financially and injury prone and nothing to prove.
Lee Novak has scored 60 league goals in 177 league games, an average of 2.95 and scored 20+ league goals in one season (2008/9) playing for Gateshead, and yes, it was the Conference Northern League, but still recognised by the Football League and the Football Association.
As been mentioned many times a goal scorer can score at any level, Lee Novak is young, not as expensive and has something to prove at this level.
Before you quote Zigic being a financial drain, he actually asked for a wage cut to help the club. Unfortunately, his agent refused to accept it; maybe he should have sacked his agent. However, I feel, as does LC, that Ziggy has more to offer than King, what the forwards need is the same as the rest of the players, the supporters to be behind them and giving them confidence, not all the negative comments or singing the praise of an has been.
We fought out a 0-1 victory this week and maybe Yeovil deserved a draw thanks to some fine saves from Randolph and a little bit of luck that was missing last season. Last week we lost 0-1 to Watford and maybe deserved a draw. This is going to be a long season and every point we get will be hard earned and welcome, last season we saw some very inept performances from some very high earning seasoned professionals. Let us see what the youth and willing to learn professionals can do, so far they have given us something to cheer and provided some long lost excitement to our club.
KRO
First points in the bag and away from home can only be good for confidence. I was slightly wrong with a 0-2 but more than happy.
The defence is beginning to look solid, while on the attack we are creating openings and having a go which is better than the early days last season.
Given more game time we can only get better, if the opposition don’t score we will always be in with a chance of three points and guaranteed one, more importantly we wont have to chase the game.
Well done, an early birthday present for me…. KRO
I think that’s an important factor… not having to chase the game. Even at Watford last week.. we were never out of it, in fact, we should have won.
Well we won thats what matters however, I think it is probable both sides will be in botton 6 come christmas still not a goal from recognized striker worrying.
So far, we’ve played 2 league games. That’s W1 D0 L1 F1 A1. And, if we’d got, at least, the draw our play deserved against Watford, it would be looking even better. That’s a fair start to the season, so I have no worries on that score.
As for the new strikers…. they’ve not played together much yet and they’ve both made the step up from lower divisions (Novak worked his balls off yesterday.) Give them time, they’ll come good. Until then, we’ve got enough midfielders who can spread the load a bit.
Well said Staffsblue, my sentiments entirely, getting behind the team will only give the team confidence.
I was on LC’s back last season but can see what he is trying to do, it would be frightening to see him have some money to spend, but he is doing a sterling job on a very frayed bootlace.
Have we ever had a Striker who hit the ground running ? All new Players need time to settle, , as you say.,. lets wait for a few weeks before we cut our wrists ( I am not accusing you of panicing , by the way , I know you have more patience)
After reading lots of negative comments pre-season its good to see fans turning up to give their support. Even though the odd few appear to be happy to spend money to moan about players continuously.
We have to be realistic about the quality of players at the managers disposal and from what i have seen so far we have a reasonable squad that should improve as they get to know each others game.
I’m already thinking that we may have a few suspensions during the season, having picked up quite a few yellow cards already, but that shows the level of commitment.
Pleased to say we wont have many journeys like Saturdays!
We still have injured players to return and may even get a player or two in by the end of August.
Optimistic. KRO.
I’m looking forward to seeing how young Will Packwood progresses this season. He’s already back in training and, Lee Clark says he’s had to calm him down a bit as he’s flying into tackles like he’s never been away. So good news so far.
I think the manager intends using him exclusively in his natural position as a centre back, so it will be interesting to see if he could strike up a partnership with Dan Burn.
David Murphy has suffered a setback, so I doubt we’ll see him this side of the transfer window. Good luck to him and I hope we’ll see him back in the squad sooner rather than later. We need cover on that left flank. Also, Zigic should be back eventually to bolster the strike force.
So many positives to look forward to.