Positivity the key for Birmingham City finishing season as a Premiership team
Despite Birmingham City’s recent cup success they now find themselves in a relegation dog fight, lying in 19th place and still looking for their first league victory since February 15th.
It should not however be all doom and gloom at St Andrews however with the array of talent that the Blues have at their disposal, they should have more than enough to see them rise out of the relegation zone and to a satisfactory league position. With this being one of the closest relegation fights in Premiership history, Birmingham only need to win their game in hand and they will see themselves raise six places. In fact there is only six points separating 11th-20th. It is just so tight to call, that any of these teams could go down; a key suspension or injury could be pivotal for any sides Premiership future.
With Alex McLeish in charge, Birmingham City can remain quietly confident that they can beat the drop, this is a manager who has won nine honours as a manager with various clubs and brings decades of experience, which is just what will be needed to calm the nervy Birmingham players. The “Big Eck” as McLeish is known, will understand that his team don’t just become a bad team over night, and they are only one piece of good fortune to go their way, and it will totally revolutionise their campaign and push them into expected league territory.
The teams threatened by the drop understand that they must be taking maximum points from all of their remaining home games to stay a Premier League side, with this in mind the Birmingham fans should remain upbeat about their chances, believing their side can reproduce last season’s amazing home record, where they only lost two games all season, seeing them finish in a fantastic ninth place.
Unfortunately St. Andrews has been far from a fortress this season; winning only 21% of their home games this year but it has surprisingly been their away record that has stopped them from being rooted at the foot of the table. The statistics show that they are more capable of winning away, with a win percentage of 27%. Obviously goals win games and this is something that Birmingham have struggled with this year, only managing to score 28 goals all season, the lowest of any Premiership side. This seems an awful record for Birmingham to hold, with strikers such as Cameron Jerome, Nikola Zigic and Obefemi Martins who over the years have been potent in front of goal.
Their abysmal recent league form has somewhat overshadowed their amazing Carling Cup Final victory over Arsenal. But it does seem somewhat outrageous how a team can put together a fantastic cup run and then the next week slump to a 3-1 defeat at home to West Brom (no offence to West Brom).
With plenty to be down about, the Blues fans should still remain positive about their future Premier League status, with Alex McLeish at the helm, they are in the safest hands. With the amount of brilliant players the club has, it seems unbelievable that they are even in this scrap at all! With many winnable and vital games left in their Premiership run-in they should be more than positive that they can lift themselves out of the bottom three.
