Rowett: We Tried Our Best

Birmingham City went down admirably 1-0 to Aston Villa in Tuesday’s Capital One Cup Third Round. Rowett changed the team tactically out of respect for the Premier League side, but in the second half the opposition responded and took the initiative in the game.

Stephen Gleeson was asked to sit deep to allow Keiftenbeld and Davis to push up and press Villa. The Blues manager felt this approach worked well in the early stages when talking to bcfc.com ‘We nullified most of their attacking threat.’

However Rowett felt the team were not positive enough when they got into promising positions. ”We got into some really good positions in the final third, the first-half, but maybe lacked a little bit of quality to make it count. We needed a little more positivity in those situations.’

Birmingham did have one wonderful chance to make it 1-1, Maghoma snatched at this shot in Rowett’s opinion, whilst noting that he should have done better.

‘As it was we chased the game, we left one or two spaces, but I don’t think they really cut us open until then, when there were some gaps. We tried our best and we couldn’t quite do enough.’

Additionally to the team doing so well against our neighbours, it is refreshing to have a manager give such an honest assessment of the game. Such things cannot be said about the oppositions manager, who probably chose to lightly gloss over their shortfalls in the first half during his interview, perhaps he couldn’t hear the boo’s.

Blues will not seek to put this disappointment behind them, with a home tie against Rotherham United. Currently just 30% of you think we’ll pick up the win on Saturday. You can vote at the bottom right hand side of this page!