Vote of No Confidence

Birmingham City sunk to an all too familiar low yesterday as QPR cruised to a 4-1 Victory at St Andrews. To team have conceded 13 goals in their last 6 games and a struggling QPR ran the show with just 38% of the ball.

You have read that right, QPR only needed 38% of the ball to make Blues look like a team with no structure, strategy or confidence. For long periods of the game Blues tried to work the ball into the oppositions box. This required a large number of players to get forward and QPR simply blocked up the space knowing Blues lack the flair and craft to really pull them out.

Credit to QPR, whilst what they had planned was relatively simple – it worked. It will also continue to work for every team that plays us because Zola implements the same instructions over and over again.

Build up play was slow, short and ‘fluid’. QPR never had to worry about getting back behind the ball, Blues failed to move it quick enough or go direct enough to exploit what little space QPR may had left behind when attacking. Stewart in particular held the ball for too long and his release to team mates was poor. He struggled yesterday and there was a general concenus near where I sit that he needed to go off, even if we had limited options to bring on.

Defensively the players are left out of position due to the way we attack. Players are asked to contribute to all phases of play and this leaves them with vast amounts of space behind and between each other. When things go wrong there is no teammate near enough to help and there’s lots of room for attacking players to exploit. We aren’t good enough to have so many players in front on the ball. A certain former manager knew that. It’s worth noting we were a far better outfit with far less just 2/3 months ago.

Another point that stood out for me was the substitutions, Cogley for Frei at half time was too early and desperate. Frei went on to do absolutely nothing. With the game drawing to a close then on came Storer for Tesche in centre midfield. Not one person sat near me thought that was a good idea. Young lad, poor discipline thrown into the mix in a position he is less familiar with.

There was a distinct lack of discipline throughout the team yesterday. Frustration boiling through and who can blame the players for that. It’s worrying nevertheless, we were close to seeing red yesterday and it’s a sign the players feel they aren’t getting back into the game. Do they believe in this system? Not sure they do now.

Tactical defending is non-existent at the moment. Forget who should have who, are players even told to mark tightly during the game? I saw none of that. Can’t recall any great individual battles going on. QPR were free to attack the ball from dead ball situations.

Blues were without key players like Gardiner, Donaldson, Juikiewicz, Davis and Morrison. This represents a large chunk of the first team squad and it must make a big difference to confidence and performance. The team yesterday still looked on paper to have enough to battle and perhaps beat a poor QPR team. Instead the opposition looked very comfortable.

Shout out to Kuszczak in goal, brave performance and he made some really good saves from headers and the like. The crowd was also around 20,000 which was great to see.

Moreover I do not believe I am alone when I write I have no confidence in Zola.