WING BACKS ROTHERHAM TO FLY CLEAR
Striker tells Blues to sort out mess or lose boss Karanka
Danjuma Hogan
BIRMINGHAM striker Scott Hogan has challenged the Blues’ squad to cut out the costly errors – before they get manager Aitor Karanka the sack.
Hogan scored twice at Bournemouth, but poor defending means City have just one win in 11 games.
“It’s just c**p, isn’t it? No other way of putting it, to be honest with you,” said former Villa striker Hogan.
“I’ve sat in changing rooms at other teams and said, ‘That’s another manager at Birmingham, another manager at Birmingham...’.
“The lads are starting to realise, maybe it’s not the managers, maybe it’s us. We know he has done it before. He’s not asking us to be Lionel Messi, he’s not asking us to be Barcelona or Real Madrid.
“Obviously, people are going to say, ‘He’s talking rubbish’, but I think we’ve got a better team than we had last year.
“Everyone gets criticism, that is part of the game. It is one per cent positive and 99 per cent negative in this game. It’s not nice, it’s not good, it’s how the world works these days and you’ve just got to deal with it.”
Hogan insists there is no question of Karanka (right) having lost the dressing room, despite City being in the bottom three.
He said: “I am one-million per cent behind him and I know the lads are. There’s no one sat there thinking, ‘That’s not right’.”
Karanka too bemoaned the costly defensive errors that he says are “the same every week,” before talking up Jonathan Woodgate’s potential for taking the Bournemouth job on a permanent basis.
“The main thing is he has the best squad in the Championship,” said Karanka. “They have an amazing squad. With his experience, he can transmit his leadership and build a team.”
Both Jack Wilshere and Arnaut Danjuma chipped in with a goal and an assist for the Cherries with Philip Billing scoring the winner.
And Danjuma revealed caretaker boss Woodgate has focused on “getting back to the fighting spirit” having stepped in after Jason Tindall’s dismissal this week.
He said: “It’s not easy switching managers and we need to adapt quickly, especially in the Championship where you have two games a week. So there is no time to mourn, you need to adapt quickly.
“It’s very important that we won and I hope this gets us back into a winning streak.”
BOURNEMOUTH:
BIRMINGHAM:
MOTM
Wiltshere Blling
JACK WILSHERE (BOURNEMOUTH)
Referee: Jeremy Simpson
PRESTON
ROTHERHAM
DEBUTANT Lewis Wing has no doubts Rotherham can avoid the drop after a first win at Deepdale for over 18 years.
A calamitous Joe Rafferty own goal after just 17 seconds laid the platform for Paul Warne to secure his first back-to-back wins as a Championship manager.
And a stunning goal from substitute Ben Wiles (above, right) sealed the deal as the Millers made it four victories from their last six League games.
Middlesbrough loan midfielder Wing impressed and said: “It’s not going to be easy to stay up.
“But I think we’ve got enough in this dressing room to stay out of the bottom three now.
“It’s great to be out of the bottom three and to make my full debut, it was a great win.
“Preston had a couple of decent chances and for large periods of the game they were right on top of us – but we dealt with their threats.”
Ched Evans made his full debut for North End, having had his a loan move made permanent just before kick-off. And the experienced striker pulled a goal back with a close-range finish.
But Alex Neil’s faltering side have still only picked up four points this year.
Liverpool loan centre-half Sepp van den Berg came off the bench to make his debut and the Dutchman was left frustrated.
“We conceded some poor goals – and that made the big difference,” said Van den Berg. “Defeat is not what we deserved but we were not good enough and we’ll have to bounce back.”
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ROTHERHAM:
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