HARRY’S GOT MOR
Flop Zola so costly for Blues skipper
Ipswich v Birmingham kick-off 3pm BIRMINGHAM skipper Michael Morrison has hit out at Gianfranco Zola for ruining his Premier League dream.
But the defender insists Blues can get their promotion bid back on track under successor Harry Redknapp who “knows what he is doing”.
Morrison, 29, has never played in the top-flight and fancied City’s chances of going up last season. But they slumped from seventh in December when Gary Rowett was sacked and replaced by Zola (above), to just staying up on the final day under Redknapp.
Hapless Zola quit three games before the end of the season but Morrison reckons he should have gone sooner.
He said: “Under Gary we were a good team and near the play-offs and ready for that next step.
“With a few extra players in January it really would have made a difference. But Gianfranco coming in just didn’t work out. The most frustrating thing was to be in the position we were at the end of the season from where we had been. It just looked impossible for that to happen.
“But it slowly snow-balled and took a lot of confidence out of the lads. Maybe if Gianfranco had gone a bit earlier it would have been easier to get out of it.
“It’s frustrating because I thought last year the league was wide open. The teams who got into the play-offs like Fulham, Reading and Huddersfield, were in the bottom half the year before. Huddersfield went and grabbed it and got promoted.
“Watch that play-off final and I personally thought if Birmingham played them we could have beaten them.”
City won their final two games – one a 2-0 defeat of Huddersfield – under Redknapp and Morrison added: “Having the support of someone who knows the game is certainly going to help.”