[Lord Snooty]

Same old story again. We have to work so hard for each goal we score and then gift the opposition goals. Great free kick from young Isaac by the way. He's been itching to take one for weeks now and finally got his way. And how!

I've already mentioned Bacuna's bad minute. They got the first goal indirectly from our corner. The second goal, we had just equalised and were going for the winner, which Josh almost got. But was it naivety at the back that let them in? Pushing too many forward instead of settling for what we'd got? Surely not. We have to go for it, don't we? Good finish though by Jutkewicz. How many's that he's scored against us in his career?

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October the 28th down the ages: How did we get on in previous matches played on this date? Answer, not very well!

1911: Gainsborough Trinity (h) Div 2, drew 2-2 (James Richardson, James Macauley)
1916: Grimsby Town (a) Wartime League, lost 1-2 (Jim Baker)
1922: Oldham Athletic (h) Div 1, WON 3-0 (Frank Mann, Joe Walter, Ernie Islip)
1933: West Bromwich Albion (h) Div 1 WON 3-1 (Charlie Luke 2, George McLean)
1939: Middlesbrough (a) Wartime League North-East, drew 2-2 (Bobby Barclay 2)
1944: Bradford Park Avenue (h) Wartime League North, drew 1-1 (Harry Baird)
1950: Bolton Wanderers (h) Div 1, lost 0-4
1961: Stoke City (a) Div 2, lost 0-3
1963: Plymouth Argyle (n) League Cup, WON 2-1 (Les Massie, Kevin McHale)
1967: Preston North End (h) Div 2, drew 1-1 (Colin Dobson)
1972: Orient (h) Div 2, drew 1-1 (Alan Gowling pen)
1978: Bradford City (a) Div 4, drew 1-1 (Peter Fletcher)
1989: Shrewsbury Town (h) Div 3, drew 1-1 (Junior Bent)
1995: Southend United (a) Div 2, drew 0-0
1997: Middlesbrough (a) Div One (2nd tier), lost 0-3
2000: Blackburn Rovers (a) Div One (2nd tier), lost 0-1
2003: Reading (a) League Cup, lost 0-1
2006: Brighton (h) League One (2nd tier), lost 0-3
2008: Yeovil Town (h) League One (2nd tier), drew 0-0
2017: Liverpool (a) Premier League, lost 0-3
2020: Birmingham City (a) Championship, lost 1-2 (Isaac Mbenza)

Well at least we scored a goal tonight!  

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Good finish though by Jutkewicz. How many's that he's scored against us in his career?

Four. Just looked it upon Soccerbase. Could've sworn it was more than that.

[WakeyTerrier]

Well i think its fair to say its back to the drawing board, the exciting quick passing moves seem to have dissapeared, pass.pass,pass repeat 50 times then pass it over the halfway line only for the next pass to back into our own half and repeat the whole process again.

76.9% possesion for the whole game and only 2 shots on target, some of these players just arent up to it.
We have 2 center backs in Schindler and Stearman who just don't look comfortable coming forward with the ball. don't get me wrong Stearman has improved but he's still not comfortable. Time to give young Chrichlow a chance i think in place of one of these

Midfield, Jonny Hogg looked decent versus Rotherham but i think that's it, another that looks uncomfortable playing any sort of ball forward or beyond 5 yards in any direction.

Bacuna, only Town can get a corner and pretty much concede as a direct result from it. At long last we are tring different things from corners but we still end up with the same result of giving the ball away. Bacuna can be brilliant when he wants to be, last night he didn't look interested so it was no suprises when he was subbed at half time.
Diakhaby, how many times did he touch the ball in the first half??? 2 or 3 times? Most notable bit of action was picking up a booking, another paasenger last night.
Campbell, one rasping shot in the first half over the bar, starved of service despite us having 6000000% possesion.
As i say not enough brave attack minded players in the team, hopefully Danny Ward might be fit for the weekend/Xmas and offer us a different dimension up top

[Lord Snooty]

Quiz answers:

1. Who beat Birmingham City in the 1960 Fairs Cup Final? Barcelona
   
2. Which ex Town player was their manager at the time? Pat Beasley
   
3. Who did Birmingham City beat in the final to win the 1963 League Cup? Aston Villa
   
4. Which club did Aitor Karanka manage between managing Middlesbrough and Birmingham? Nottingham Forest
   
5. Who played in goal for Birmingham in the 2002 Play Off Final? Nico Vaesen
   
6. Who was Birmingham's captain in the 1931 FA Cup Final? Ned Barkas
   
7. How many times have Birmingham City won the League Cup? Twice
   
8. Which Town goalkeeper won a gold medal at the 1912 Olympics? Ronald Brebner
   
9. Who was Birmingham's leading scorer in 1980/81? Frank Worthington
   
10. Who scored Town's first hat trick in the Football League? James Macauley
    

Theo wins this one with two out of ten. Thanks to everybody who took part.  

[Lord Snooty]

From the Unexamined:

It’s difficult to take, isn’t it, when you lose so late on like that?


Carlos Corberan: Especially when we tried to do our best and especially after the second half we had.

I think the team did the second half that we should do. I think the team started the game like we shouldn’t start the game.

Usually there would be the option to attack more or create more chances in the first half because in the first half we had the ball but we failed the options to progress because we didn’t find the size of the advantage that for me we could find today.

After one set piece that we didn’t take well, we gave away a foul and from the foul they scored their goal. We knew that they would be focused on counter-attacks and set pieces, it was exactly the game we expected to play.

But I think it’s hard to accept losing after the second half we did.

It was another game where you just needed that moment of quality in the final third.

Corberan: The most important thing for the team is to have the ball to create chances because if we increase the chances we create we are going to have more options to score a goal.

Something we need to analyse a little bit is why we didn’t create enough chances in the first half because in the first minutes we played really well and the team for me could have had more options to create chances in the first half and we didn’t do enough in the first half.

We created enough chances in the second half and lost only once the organisation in defence in the second half and it was exactly the action for their goal.

Sometimes you feel you can go for the game and take the three points and in these moments you never can lose organisation. It was what happened.
Maybe it was my mistake not to be more focused from the defensive point of view from this action, trying to help the team to take the point.
It was a nice moment for Isaac Mbenza to get that goal late on.

Corberan: It’s important for him because he’s someone that always has the ambition to score goals and help the team to score goals. It was a free kick he took really well but unfortunately we couldn’t receive any points from this nice action.

You got Alex Pritchard on in the second half as well… that’s the first time he’s played for a while. How do you feel he did after the came on?

Corberan: I think the team improved in the second half. I think we improved a little bit the positions of the players. Pipa in the first half was in the back of the midfield and couldn’t receive enough balls.

We didn’t do well enough in the build-up for me because we circulated the ball a lot laterally but we didn’t find the players between the lines. That’s something that is normal because they were defending with five players [in the back line] but we should give a little bit more spirit and intention in the circulation of the ball.

It was something we tried to improve in the second half with the position of Pipa helping the team in the build-up and creating more spaces and more one-v-one situations up the right side with Adama first and after with Isaac.

For me the team felt comfortable enough to arrive into the last part of the pitch and to move the ball there which is not easy, but at the same time I need to analyse why we didn’t create enough chances in the first half and why we couldn’t stop the [second] goal that they had.

It’s an action where we lost our positions in attack and after we had one vs two on the side, he won in a situation where we had a numerical advantage in defence to avoid the counter-attack and stop the action there. We couldn’t do it, they cross, they hit the post and then they score from the second shot.

It was hard because the team did everything they could do to draw and even win the game.

Was it a bit of a shock to concede so late on after doing well in the second half and working yourself into the game?

Corberan: No doubt.

Always you see you have [equalised] you feel enthusiastic and that all the effort we need had the pay-off and the reward was a minimum of one point, but I think the feeling of the team was to try and go for more.

The players tried to go for the second and in these moments we never have to lose the organisation in defence because the moment we lose organisation in defence we don’t have the option to stop opponents.

There’s been a lot of criticism of Adama Diakhaby from the fans throughout the game. Do you think that’s fair?

Corberan: I think Adama is a player that was fine in his actions to unbalance the game in the first half but I think as a team we didn’t use the right side enough to attack.

In the first half we attacked more on the left side with Josh Koroma. On the right we had Adama and with Pipa and I think the relation of the position between Adama and Pipa didn’t help them both to create spaces because I think with Pipa in a higher position it moved defenders closer to Adama.

At the same time when the ball was on the left side and Adama was totally free to have one-vs-one actions we didn’t use a switch of play enough to find an action that for me is an advantage for him.

In the second half with some improvement in the positions I think the team found more options with Adama on the right side. He unbalanced them in some actions and took on crosses but we couldn’t find the crosses.

We need to focus on more than one player. We need to focus on why we didn’t do enough in the first half and why we didn’t use him enough in the first half and at the same time analyse the performance to see what the players need to do better.