Watto’s Preview: Sunderland vs Birmingham City

When Blues beat Sunderland earlier in the season the Mackems were enjoying a brief period at the level in the Premiership that Blues are now established. A League table including just the games played since then would show Blues in fourth place and Sunderland in the bottom two. It would also show Portsmouth out of the relegation zone before the 9 point deduction. That reduction would not lift Sunderland from the bottom three. (The Village People would be half way if you were wondering)

The Sunderland win was the start of Blues record breaking run in the Premiership and coincided with the entrance of Carson Yeung and his entourage.  Maybe Steve Bruce now regrets his jumping ship to the mighty Wigan before landing the Big Job at The Stadium of Light.

Steve has talked about the expectation of a big club which is ironic as he spent most of his time here trying to limit and even destroy expectation. Alex Mcleish in contrast has managed the totally unrealistic expectation of Rangers and Scotland fans and now has a clear view of the way to control and hopefully realise the expectation of Blues fans. There are Blues fans that saw Yeung’s money as a passport to instant glory. The excellent run Blues enjoyed added to the feeling that Blues were about to join the trophy winning elite.

Yeung and McLeish have formulated a plan to move Blues forward with the ashes of Portsmouth to remind every football club the price of irresponsibility. The first brick in the wall will be to sign Alex to a long term lucrative deal. The man can already lay claim to be Blues greatest ever manager. Only Arthur Turner can match his record in terms of League placing and Cup runs. The 15 match unbeaten run in this Premier League is unique in Blues history.

Before I get bombarded with insults for that paragraph I have to admit that opinion is based more on gut feeling than anything else. I just like the way that he gets the job done. Promotion was won in spite of the players that were available to him. Those who were ok in the championship we removed and replaced with Premiership quality. The mistakes that have been made were corrected and it’s noticeable that Blues rarely get beat twice in a row these days.

The attainment of 40 points and defeat in the FA cup could have signalled the end of Blues’ season. Following a fine show at Fratton in the league the fans could be excused for thinking that for 25 minutes against Everton the boys were on the beach.  An hour later we were wondering why we hadn’t taken all the points.

This season is far from over and Sunderland will test Blues intent more than their expertise. Brucie has thrown a few insults our way this season.  Suggesting that Blues couldn’t afford his players in the week they lost 7-2 at Chelsea was laughable. The League cup win he described as easy after Blues sent a shadow squad for a mid week nightmare trip.

This will be Sunderland’s 4th consecutive home game and so far they have two draws and a win. Watching their game last Sunday against Man City one couldn’t help thinking that they had perhaps had used up a large amount of their luck entitlement. If Man City failed to breech their defence in over 90 minutes then our modest goal scorers could find things difficult. Blues have scored two goals in each of their last two games which represent a feast. Jerome has netted 3 of those and will need to continue that streak.

This has been labelled as just another fixture but a Premier League match can never be that. Although Big Eck and Brucie have never shown any animosity towards one another you can be sure that both want to win this game. It’s interesting to observe that Blues boss looks very calm and healthy while Brucie is edgy, has gone grey and put on two stone since he left us.

By Alan Watton

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