Blues went down in a narrow defeat against Watford on Saturday with the only goal of the game coming from the man who scored twice at St Andrews last season, Troy Deeney.
Deeney showed that he is once again going to be among the top scorers in the league when he popped up to give Watford the start that they wanted to the new season as they set about trying to go one better than last season and get promoted.
But Blues had enough chances in this game to get something from it, they certainly showed that they have the spirit in the side, but a cutting edge seemed to be lacking. Still, it’s early days yet.
But Watford were the better side when it came down to playing football, while Blues put pressure on the visitors in the early stages of the game, it was more of an attempt to over run Watford
The Hornets on the other hand seemed very confident on the ball seeing as they are an almost complete new team, they looked like they had played together for some time, and that showed when they took their goal.
The man we warned about in our match preview, Fernando Forestieri, looked like he had been the partner of Deeney for many seasons when he played a one-two and before Blues could do anything about it; Deeney was able to fire in a low shot that had Darren Randolph beaten.
Another player who was a danger to the City defence was Ikechi Anya who always looked like he could have produced a chance or two whenever he was in control of the ball.
One player who looked like he could do something this season was Andrew Shinnie, he didn’t look out of place seeing as he was playing his first ever game in the Championship and should prove to be a good acquisition for Blues.
In the second half of the game City showed that they are not going to be the sort of side that gives up too easily this term and they battled away in the hope of an equaliser, but Watford had a defence that had obviously done their homework on the Birmingham side.
There was definitely passion in the Blues side, so much so that there was a few meaty tackles going in that were rewarded with a yellow card for three players and the fourth came later when Novak showed a bit of frustration.
That may be something that City need to work on, this season we cannot afford to have players getting bans all over the place.
But all in all, the fight is there but work is needed in the final third of the field, but it was against a good looking Watford side.
Blues: Randolph; Bartley, Burn, Robinson; Eardley, Adeyemi, Elliott, Shinnie, Ferguson (Burke 80); Novak, Green (Allan 75).
Not used: Doyle, Mullins, Lee, Reilly, Arthur.
Watford: Almunia; Doyley, Angella, Cassetti; Faraoni, Iriney, McGugan (Battocchio 68), Abdi, Anya (Pudil 75); Deeney, Forestieri (Fabbrini 68).
Not used: Bond, Ekstrand, Acuna, Smith.
Referee: Paul Tierney.
Attendance: 18,830 (2,701 visitors).
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