SECOND CITY SECOND RATE
Villa can push Birmingham towards drop
IT DID not go unnoticed that Harry Redknapp’s unveiling as Birmingham City manager took place in the Jasper Carrott Suite at St Andrew’s. The Brummie comedian does not do many jokes about football and maybe it is just as well. These days there are punchlines everywhere you look.
Amid the hullabaloo of the FA Cup semi-finals this weekend, another important game takes place: Aston Villa v Birmingham, the Second City derby. Keith Dixon writes in his book
Bad Blood: ‘Beyond Birmingham, this match isn’t remembered for the football. Blues v Villa is best known as a public order problem.’
That may be stretching things a bit but the point is taken and the teams convene in Aston at noon tomorrow suffering from considerably reduced circumstances.
Villa are 12th in the Championship table and Birmingham are 20th, three points above the relegation zone — hence the call this week to Redknapp.
So for now the Blues are the big story. They were seventh when mysterious owners Trillion Trophy Asia replaced manager Gary Rowett with Gianfranco Zola last December. When Zola walked after the home defeat by Burton on Monday, they were in very deep trouble indeed.
But there are similarities between the clubs. Before Bruce was appointed by Villa in October, the club had laboured under another Italian, Roberto di Matteo. Twenty years ago next month, Zola and Di Matteo won the FA Cup together with Chelsea. Life has got harder.
‘If Gianfranco Zola’s c.v. had somebody else’s name on the top, it would have gone in the bin,’ said Dixon last night. ‘You could probably say the same about Di Matteo at Villa. Stupid appointments by owners looking for a big name. This weekend is a scary one for us Blues. Villa could put us in the relegation zone and they would love that.
‘But there is a bigger picture. Birmingham have foreign owners and so do Villa. Blues are run now by five faceless Chinese guys. We don’t know who they are or what they want. They don’t talk to the supporters, don’t understand that football clubs are supposed to be here for the community.
‘When they took over they said they would take us in a new direction and they have. Downwards.’
Ownership in football is a moot subject. At Villa, American Randy Lerner has been replaced by Chinese businessman Dr Tony Xia and, in Midlands football, Far East ownership is the norm. At Birmingham, meanwhile, hardly anything is known about Trillion Trophy Asia other than they are headed up by Paul Suen, who is said to be worth £450m.
Day- to- day decisions at St Andrew’s are taken by chief executive Panos Pavlakis, a survivor of the previous Carson Yeung ownership, but Birmingham is not a happy club. ‘There is constant in-fighting,’ said a very well-placed source.
And in the middle of all this is Redknapp, a manager brought in to find a way through difficult fixtures against Villa, Huddersfield and Bristol City on the back of limited knowledge of the squad.
‘I can’t just walk in and change things like that,’ said Redknapp. Birmingham supporters will hope he is wrong.
ALEX McLeish is unusual among managers given that he once received death threats from fans of the club he was leaving as well as the one he was joining. That’s what happens when you swap Birmingham City for Villa.
Steve Bruce has also managed both but there was a gap of nine years. As such, he just about gets away with it.
‘I am going to be honest, I don’t want to see Birmingham relegated,’ said Bruce. ‘It would be poor for the Second City. We need to be in the Premier League, not hovering around the bottom end of the Championship. Or midtable in the Championship.
‘In respect of football in the Midlands, I don’t want to see any club in trouble.’
In a revealing interview with the BBC’s Pat Murphy this week, Bruce admitted Villa have told him he needs to take the club back to the Premier League next season. A look at the squad tells you that will be hard to achieve.
In the Lerner years, Villa paid too much for too little quality and now they are suffering the consequences. They enjoyed a brief uplift on the back of Bruce’s appointment but their form since hints at the size of the job.
‘Where we are at the minute doesn’t lie,’ said Bruce. ‘It isn’t good enough for a club like ours. Given time, I will build a team to get us out of this division.’
Time. There is rarely enough of it in football. On the field tomorrow, it will be in short supply. As always, it will be a spiteful affair watched by a full house of 42,000. It is not on TV and kicks off at noon on the orders of the police.
‘It will be a dire game, said Dixon. ‘But I wish I had a ticket.’