Everything else must wait... top priority is to stop rot!
Blues are in dire straits after slipping back into the bottom three and must act before it’s too late, says BRIAN DICK
BIRMINGHAM City’s annus horribilis continued unabated at Barnsley on Saturday where Blues lost 2-0, went for a fourth game without a goal and slipped back into the Championship’s relegation zone.
It was too much for some of the 1,848 travelling supporters to bear, who vented their frustration at their own players.
It is frustration built up over 11 months, since the sacrificing of a potential play-off challenge for a seemingly perpetual struggle.
While the players were the recipients, it could just as easily be directed at anyone who has contributed to what has been an incomprehensible downturn.
Whether it’s the turnover in managers, the revolving door that has seen players arrive and leave at a staggering rate, or the circumstances in which both of those things have happened, one thing that cannot be disputed is the first year of the owners’ tenure has been disastrous.
If there is a disconnect, or indeed several, it’s hardly surprising. But down that road lies League One. Whatever is going on off the pitch, on it Birmingham City have to go back to factory settings.
Steve Cotterill must look around his squad and see which players he trusts to give him their absolute best every day of the week and be the most receptive to what he is trying to do
During his career he has shown himself capable of building teams and must construct this one around the men with whom he wants to go to war.
They might not be the most talented, they might not be the oldest, youngest, highest profile nor even most popular. But they have to be united.
Though we all have an instinctive feel as to which players that might be, Cotterill is better placed than anyone to judge that.
After all, the only chance Blues have of getting out of the bottom three is through honesty and unity – the qualities Gary Rowett utilised when he arrived and pressed the reset button in October 2014. Those virtues carried Blues inexorably away from danger and took a limited squad to quite unexpected heights.
Eventually they hit a glass ceiling, one through which this group of players have the technical
accomplish- ment to break, but the line.
This is a time when more prosaic, but far more important, qualities are required.
An absolute, unstinting 100-percent commitment to rescuing the situation is the bare minimum. With that Birmingham City’s season can be turned round and those other talents can shine through. that’s way down .
Without it, it won’t matter who the manager is or what system he uses. Too much has changed too fast and at the moment the club is going round in ever-decreasing circles.
The answer to stopping Blues going down the plug-hole lies within the playing squad and with the men who share the same concerns for Birmingham City as their supporters.
Everything else can wait.