Are We Feared?

We all remember the nerve jangling time at the Reebok Stadium where Caddis put his name into folklore alongside the likes of Martins.

In this period, clubs who opposed us were confident. They came to St Andrews thinking that they could take the 3 points away to whichever part of England they came from. They often attacked from the word ‘go’ leaving the Blues’ penned back and unable to string a succession of passes together.

With the revolution that Rowett has inspired, I believe that we have turned the tables in terms of the psychology of matches. Birmingham City are the team that others are changing their tactics in order to deal with our threats rather than the other way around.

It was very noticeable in the match yesterday, that Forest set up very defensively. This shows the amount of respect that Forest have to us and also it shows that they thought that we were an attacking threat. They would have been pleased with a point which meant that they were prepared to park the bus because they sensed that Birmingham could steal the show if this was not the case.

Despite this being an indication of how far Birmingham City has come, it is slightly concerning. We are not used to competing against teams who like to sit back and just break because before, we have not earned the respect in order to have this. Now, we need to adapt to how others play, and fast.

The game against Ipswich is coming up and they are an attacking team but they could also do what Forest did and keep a very rigid defensive structure. Therefore, the principles learnt in the Mid-Week game will have to be corrected and worked on if we are to be successful in this coming week.