Duo are United by the desire to beat Rotherham and the drop
HATS off to Birmingham City’s new manager/head coach Lee Bowyer.
Since joining on March 16 he has galvanised the Blues and only lost one of five matches and that was at second-placed Watford.
Bowyer has quickly sorted out his squad taking 10 points out of a possible 15.
This has lifted the Blues nine points clear of the bottom three and Saturday’s 2-0 home win over Stoke leapfrogs them over Coventry, Derby and Huddersfield.
Remarkable considering their two other wins are against high-flying Reading and Swansea plus a point at third-placed Brentford. The Blues have five games left.
In contrast Coventry, immediately above the relegation line, have only taken four points out of a possible 15 since Bowyer arrived at St Andrew’s for the landlords. The tenants have six games left – half of those at St Andrew’s.
This week should really sort it out. Both play the only team that realistically can catch them – Rotherham.
You have to assume that Wycombe and Sheffield Wednesday will be relegated. They surely have too much to do.
Rotherham, now six points adrift, have three games in hand over the Sky Blues and four over the Blues. This is because the Yorkshire team was badly hit by Covid-19.
But it is still really tough for Rotherham because beginning tonight they will have four games in eight days, albeit all at home with two of those games against both Coventry and Birmingham.
Tonight Rotherham play QPR; Thursday the Sky Blues (7pm live on Sky Sports); Sunday versus the Blues (noon live on Sky Sports) before hosting Middlesbrough a week tomorrow. Rotherham have only won four of 18 home games. You cannot fancy them to equal that with these four matches!
It is not over for our two clubs but the ball is in their court. If they blow it now, they do not deserve to stay up.
The Sky Blues need to beat Rotherham because on Sunday they face a tricky home match, fifthplaced Barnsley – a tough but vital ask for them with two games in four days.
I do expect them both to be in the Championship next season. It would be a great accomplishment for both Bowyer and Mark Robins for different reasons.
n Regular readers of this column will know I am a big supporter of VAR. It is here to stay.
But some laws need tidying up –
particularly offside.
The sooner FIFA enforce Arsene Wenger’s recommendation the better. He says that if any part of the attacker’s body is onside then that is sufficient. Football is about goals and some of the current finest of margins – fingers, arms, toes etc – is not in the spirit of the game.
We had two such examples at the weekend although in both matches
the teams penalised went on to win with late goals – Wolves 1-0 at Fulham and Liverpool 2-1 at home to Aston Villa. I thought both decisions were difficult to agree with.
In both cases the match referee had originally given the goals but (using the ‘lines’ on VAR) he was advised otherwise. They were not in the “serious or obvious error” category in my opinion.
While I am at it, what happened to the law about moving away from a conceded free-kick.
The refs must deal with the defending side who are deliberately standing over the ball instead of retreating. Yellow card please!
n I am glad that Saturday’s football matches will have different kick-off times than the normal 3pm.
The nation should respect that is the start time for the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral.
I am a great supporter of the Royal Family and have been lucky enough to meet most of them quite a few times including Prince Philip. However, on one occasion in Birmingham, I received an unfair telling-off.
I cannot remember the event but I was Controller of Sport for Central Television at the time and was introduced to him as such.
He immediately launched into how angry he was about Central’s satire programme Spitting Image – particularly about their portrayal of his mother-in-law (the Queen Mother). I tried to remind him that I was in sport but he was not interested, adding that he had performed the official opening of Central’s East Midlands studio and this was the company’s response.
A week later, I was playing cricket for the Lord’s Taverners cricket team in the shadows of Windsor Castle against an old Australian Test team.
Prince Philip, who liked his cricket, attended as he was the Lord’s Taverners Charity’s ‘twelfth man’ and the previous week was forgotten. It was another lovely day.
Prince Philip was also Patron of the Garrick Club in Covent Garden and a Companion Rat for the Grand Order of Water Rats Charity. I am a proud member of both.
I went on to make a documentary about the Queen Mother which I will write about soon in my Sunday Mercury column in association with All Electric. This coming week – the ups and downs of life in television with
It is not over for our two clubs but the ball is in their court. If they blow it now, they do not deserve to stay up.