Blues have become soft touch under new boss
GIANFRANCO Zola cut an unusually agitated figure during his post match press obligations at Deepdale on Tuesday night.
The Birmingham City manager had just seen his team concede a 78th minute winner, have their captain sent off and his tenure reach the lowest point so far.
He didn’t want to stand there answering questions about an eighth defeat in 13 games – but to be fair to him he fronted up and honoured his commitments.
There was a much harder edge to the narrative, though.
There was no bemoaning bad luck, this time his assessment was withering: “We are – at the moment – very poor, as simple as that. We have got to be honest.”
Which is to ignore the fact that Zola’s Birmingham are capable of playing some very decent football, in patches.
However they are also a soft touch. When the pressure comes on, inevitably they crumble.
That pressure is at its most intense at the start and end of games and in those situations the last two matches have been excruciating watching – both for Zola and even more so for the legions of supporters who have travelled up and down the country to stand by their team.
Their resolve has been admirable and their frustration entirely understandable.
Particularly because, after two months in charge, Zola’s team is still struggling for lift-off and the manager is running out of runway.
He is yet to find the right configuration – undermined by injuries and the need to integrate new signings in less than ideal circumstances. But for the third match running the opposition’s wide players were given acres of time and space to pick apart a flimsy defence.
They dodged a bullet against Fulham but were caught between the eyes at Hillsborough and Deepdale and as a result this weekend’s match with Queen’s Park Rangers becomes critical.
It might be that the 3-5-2 system introduced at half time on Tuesday night was a vision of the future – a formation as recently as Monday he said he didn’t feel was the right route to go down.
Three-at-the-back produced a second half improvement but without a much more solid display on Saturday – which would hopefully be good enough to produce a muchneeded three points, you have to ask how long that future is going to be.
Meanwhile, former Birmingham City manager Lee Clark has left Kilmarnock to become boss at League One side Bury after the Shakers agreed a compensation package with the Scottish Premiership side.
The 44-year-old had been in charge at Rugby Park since February 2016. He kept Killie in the Premiership last season via a play-off and leaves them in sixth place.
Bury are in the relegation zone in the third tier and Clark will be on the sidelines for the game against Chesterfield on Saturday.
“Lee is someone who I have followed through his career,” said Bury chairman Stewart Day. “I firmly believe that he is the right man to take this club forward.”
Clark was manager at Blues from June 2012 to October 2014 and is best remembered for the final day relegation dodge at Bolton in May 2014.