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Opinion: Will This Winless Streak End Soon?

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As Birmingham City fans, we all want the club to do well. I have heard suggestions that people want the club to fail just so that it proves that the appointment of Zola was a bad decision. Fans have been booing players and management alike, which I think is mainly directed at the board for the appointment but most of the fans all want one thing; to start winning games. Most managers do not come into a club and win straight away. Bruce at Villa, Jose at United; big name managers need to get their own ideas across and bring in their own players in order to create a team that plays in the style that they’re used to coaching.

So I did not expect Zola to win games straight from the off. I didn’t even expect good performances because I knew that some of our players did not grasp Zola’s ideas and maybe couldn’t adapt to a new style given various limitations. But I was very hopeful that he may be able to unite the players and get them playing a brand of more attacking football, which I am sure most fans hoped. The already shaky tensions amongst fans hasn’t been helped by the fact that Zola can’t seem to get his players to play the way that he wants them to. I don’t believe that we have Zola style players.

What I mean by this is that firstly, he likes to play wing backs. Well we have full backs and we always have done. These are defensive players that like to stay back and occasionally power forward but their attacking flair is quite limited albeit they do chip in with assists. Wingbacks need to be physically athletic and they need to be pacy. They are basically a winger that has defensive responsibilities. Now at the club currently, Cogley could develop into this role but Shotton is the only one capable of doing this and I think that Zola sees him as a centre half anyway. So that’s 2 positions that already don’t suit his philosophy and he has not addressed this in the transfer window.

The other area he doesn’t seem too happy with is his wingers. Again, he likes the Dimmy Gray style player out wide as in they have tricks and pace to be very unpredictable. Loads of wingers are like that now but we have Cotterill and Maghoma who are more powerful and have a good cross into the box but they don’t have the style that Zola normally goes for. It’s just a preference I think. Cotts and Maghoma are not bad players but I think that he just prefers a different style. This is why we are being linked with a lot of wingers around this January window.

The next league game is away at Blackburn. Now they’re really struggling. I have a lot of friends who support them and they say that the defending is dire and that they offer very little going forward apart from the long ball. Now, if we can’t beat teams like that, then I do have to question whether Zola knows the league at all or whether he just had players who knew the league in his time at Watford. Forest were a side that we should have beaten as well and so if we don’t win these types of games then its hard to still stick by Zola and the fan base will become less and less united.

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