[themaclad]

The first of three away matches in the next four games takes us to St Andrews to take on a vastly improved Birmingham City under the leadership of Gary Monk.
Monk the brother of Thelonious (pictured)

are proving a bit harder to beat this season although did lose their local derby 4-2 last Sunday but bouned back in midweek by beating Millwall on Wednesday.
City have two inform strikers in Adams and Jutkiewicz, they are 10th in the league and have not lost at home this season, last season we won 3-1 at St Andrews which resulted in the dismissal of the Jungle King Harry Redknapp.
City have one major problem looming with a possible points deduction due to financial irregularities which occured when 1920's gangster Tommy Shelby owned the club.
Here's the wiki bit

Birmingham City Football Club is a professional association football club based in the city of Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, they became Small Heath in 1888, then Birmingham in 1905, finally becoming Birmingham City in 1943.[6] The first team competes in the EFL Championship, the second tier of the English football league system.

As Small Heath, they played in the Football Alliance before becoming founder members and first ever champions of the Football League Second Division. The most successful period in their history was in the 1950s and early 1960s. They achieved their highest finishing position of sixth in the First Division in the 1955–56 season and reached the 1956 FA Cup Final, progressed to the final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1960 and 1961, and won their first major trophy, the League Cup, in 1963, beating Aston Villa 3–1 on aggregate. They won the latter competition for the second time in 2011. They have played in the top tier of English football for around half of their history:[7] the longest period spent outside the top division, between 1986 and 2002, included two brief spells in the third tier of the English League, during which time they twice won the Football League Trophy.

St Andrew's has been their home ground since 1906. They have a long-standing and fierce rivalry with Aston Villa, their nearest neighbours, with whom they play the Second City derby. The club's nickname is Blues, after the colour of their kit, and their fans are known as Bluenoses.

Ref Watch: Birmingham City

Taking charge of his second North End game of the season this weekend is match official David Webb.

The Lancashire referee took the whistle for the August trip to Pride Park and is now in his 11th season on the EFL lists and is taking charge of his 14th game of the season, having so far issued 37 cautions and one red card.

Before the Derby game it was early 2016 since we last saw his running a North End game. That season he refereed North End's 2-0 home win over Peterborough United.
Since then he has refereed PNE on ten occasions, some of the most memorable games including the FA Cup win at Wycombe Wanderers, when Kevin Davies scored a stunning strike from 35 yards, and a 3-2 home win over Crewe Alexandra in 2011.
This is his first Birmingham City game of the season and the first game where he has been in the middle at St Andrews in his long refereeing career.

At St Andrews he will be joined by Mark Russell and Lee Venamore, who will run the lines, whilst the fourth official is fellow Select Group Two referee Darren England.

[themaclad]

Preston North End manager Alex Neil has presided over a nine-game unbeaten spell of late, the longest current run in the Championship.

Tom Clarke and Pauls, Gallagher and Huntington, have been the spine of a team that has dominated games and picked up some excellent results and the gaffer feels their experience is something the younger members of the squad are learning from.

“Tom Clarke, Paul Gallagher and Paul Huntington have been crucial for us,” said Alex. “They are the lads who set the standards. They are the older lads who go and make sure that all the bits of the game that might look that little bit ugly get done.
“Their experience of knowing when to turn the ball, knowing when to take a touch or when to squeeze the game and making sure the other lads are switched on and doing their jobs in the match.
“We have a really good blend here. We have experienced lads who have been across the course and know what to do and how to get it done and we have some exciting young players, some of whom are starting to come into their peak at the moment – Alan Browne, Ben Pearson, Ben Davies and Callum Robinson, who is obviously injured at the moment.

“We then have the younger kids again like Jordan Storey and Josh Earl who are just finding their way in the game and getting as many minutes as they can.

“I think our blend is really good and all our players, regardless of where they are on the spectrum, are performing well for us this season.”

The Lilywhites look to continue their excellent recent form at St Andrews, where they are unbeaten in the last nine years, and the PNE chief reflected on his trip to the second city last season, where his side picked up their first away win under his management.

It was the last game in charge of the Blues for current jungle-dweller Harry Redknapp, and the Alex remembers it as a Jekyll and Hyde display for his team and one where the hairdryer treatment synonymous with another Scottish manager, paid dividends.

“The first half was a poor performance from us and they played pretty well,” he recalled. “I remember I gave them a bit of a rocket at half-time and the outstanding performance that comes to mind was from Daniel Johnson – he was exceptional on the day.
“Any game where you win is pleasing, but it was the manner in which we won it that was good.
Harry was there, who has had a glittering career as a manager, so it is always good to pit your wits against the guys who have done it for a long time.”

It is a very different Birmingham City the Lilywhites face on Saturday though and the manager, who has seen plenty of his opponents at the weekend, has been impressed by what they have done and the use of the assets at his disposal by opposite number Garry Monk.

“What Garry has done it that he has played to his team’s strengths.

“When you have someone like Jutkiewicz, you get the ball up to him. The big man, little man combination was synonymous back in the day with teams, but it just shows you that some of the older methods are the best and they should be happy with what they have done this year.
“In the first six games of the season, I saw then three or four times and they were so unfortunate that they didn’t win some of those games. I remember Bolton where Will Buckley handballed the ball into the net and the referee didn’t see it, the Swansea game they battered Swansea and should have won it quite comfortably.
“They have methods of how they play and they do it very, very well, so it is going to be a tough match.

"They are not too dissimilar to ourselves, in that they have a tight squad – which I think is good to work with, because all of the lads feel they have a genuine chance of being involved regularly – and it brings that camaraderie together as well and you can see that Birmingham certainly have.

[themaclad]

Birmingham City 3 Kieftenbeld, Maghoma, Adams Preston North End 0

Birmingham City line-up: Camp, Pedersen, Colin, Kieftenbeld, Mahoney (Harding, 74), Adams, Jutkiewicz (Bogle, 83), Dean, Maghoma, G Gardner, Morrison ©. Subs not used: Trueman, Roberts, C Gardner, Dacres-Cogley, Lakin.

PNE line-up: Rudd, Fisher, Earl (Hughes, 46), Ledson, Huntington ©, Storey, Barkhuizen, Gallagher, Moult, Browne (Burke, 79), Barker (Nmecha, 57). Subs not used: Maxwell, Davies, Woods, Baxter.

Attendance: 20,523 (1,258 PNE fans)

Referee: Mr D Webb

Would have taken a point when I saw the team we were putting out, addeed to the massive long term injuries we have both Pearson and Clarke were missing today and 0our lack of depth in the squad would somewhere catch us up although and it's a big if, but for one mistake just after half time we may have got that point, however we didn't.
City dominated the early stages two Morrison headers went wide and the recalled Fisher majestically scoop a clearence over his own bar when he could quite easily have buried it inb his own net.
We weatehered the early storm and started to get into the game with Barker causing the home defence a few problems, we even create a couple of chances Moult with an overhead kick which forced a good save from Camp and a Fisher effort which was also saved by the old guy between the sticks. Towards half time the home side again started to po0se a threat but level at half time.
15 seconds into the second half it was game over with possibly the worst keeper error I have seen since Peter Enclemann at the same grond and same end.
Kiefenbeld's intended pass for a home forward from 45 yards dribbled towards the goal straight at Rudd, he bent down to pick it up but sort of missed this harmless pass and into the net it went, stunned silence in the visiting end as no one could quite believe what they had seen.
The goal gave the home team and support a major boost and for the next 15 minutes threatened to run riot as you could see the confidence drain out of the North End players. Rudd did slightly redeem himself pulling off two good save, but City had several good chances which they should have taken, didn't prove costly though on the hour it was two Maghoma firing home from about 15 yards.
Battled back with Gallagher free kicks causing some problems although never looked like scoring and we were finally sunk following one of our corners when Adams had the freedom of the park to advance unchecked before firing past Rudd to seal the game.
So the unbeaten run which started with a 97th minute penalty save at Villa Park ended with Declan's mistake. Next week Forest away desperately short of bodies does not augur well, and Robinson had surgery on his hamstring today. COULD BE A LONG MONTH.#

Preston manager Alex Neil speaking to BBC Radio Lancashire:

"I don't really need to say much to Declan. I thought that really affected the match. You could hear the fans talking about it for the next 10 minutes.

"Birmingham have not lost a home game all season. They're really disciplined. They don't come out to try and press the ball, and when they do get it, they get it up to Lukas Jutkiewicz and work around him. Teams like Swansea and West Brom- really good football teams who build and try to play through you- have come here and found it really difficult.

"It was a bad day at the office for us. The disappointing thing was that, towards the end of the game, we looked as if we didn't have the belief to get back into the game."

Birmingham City manager Garry Monk:

"[Promotion] is totally not in our thinking at all. We deal with reality. Everyone understands what we have been working under this season. This club have been facing relegation on the last day in three out of the last five years. We want to show progression. That is all we are focused on.

"We don't have a magic wand. We are fighting and trying to be better than what we have been before. Everyone is on the same page. If it takes us somewhere, great.

"It has been the perfect response to losing the derby and you cannot ask for anything more than what we have done. We are proud of our record at St Andrew's and we will fight hard to maintain that."