Football – England – Capital One Cup
Tuesday 14th August 2012 – Kickoff: 1945hrs
Tuesday night brings not only the first match of the season for these two clubs, but yet another dawning of a new era at Birmingham City and another new chapter in what is the well-known roller-coaster that is supporting this club.
Out go the familiar faces of manager Chris Hughton to Norwich City, highly promising midfielder Jordan Mutch to Cardiff City and keeper Boaz Myhill, and in come midfielders with bags of experience at Championship (and indeed Premiership level) Darren Ambrose and Hayden Mullins along with Ravel Morrision on a season-long loan from West Ham.
In addition to these, Blues also snapped up former Newcastle United striker Peter Lovenkrands for a free transfer, and he will definitely be a welcome addition not least when the season enters the hectic Christmas/New Year schedule and we’re struggling for fit strikers!
Another new face at the helm also in the shape of Lee Clarke; it’ll be interesting to see how he fares in the Championship with a club of massive potential such as Birmingham, and he’ll no doubt have a point to prove following his controversial sacking from his former club Huddersfield Town.
Anyhow, Birmingham open their account with a home tie against lowly Barnet in the first round of the newly-named Capital One Cup (so many changes, it’s hard to keep up), and to be honest they must fancy this one and be pretty confident of being in the hat for the Second Round; Clarke has assembled his troops pretty well in the pre-season fixtures with Blues drawing 2-2 with German club Borussia, then wins over lower league opposition such as Shrewsbury Town 2-1 and hitting Bury and Plymouth Argyle both for 5, sandwiched between losses against Cheltenham and Royal Antwerp.
The positive thing to come out of these matches though is valuable game time for the new boss and of course Birmingham hitting the back of the net with some regularity including a few for new-boy Lovenkrands.
This is the final match I guess for the fringe players in the squad to stake their claim for a starting berth against Charlton Athletic in the Championship at the weekend with players like Nathan Redmond, Wade Fairhurst, Ravel Morrison and perhaps even Zigic now he has Lovenkrands breathing down his neck.
Marlon King and Chris Burke were the stand-out players for me last season in attack, whilst Curtis Davies quickly established himself as one of the best central defenders in the Championship and we may have to work hard to keep hold of him come the January transfer window. It’s also encouraging to note that an offer for England’s Number 3 (Jack Butland) was rejected from Southampton and in effect is another new signing for us as he looks set to start between the sticks for Blues on Tuesday night.
Onto the visitors then, and it was a long tough season for Barnet who narrowly avoided relegation down to the Blue Square Conference with a last day away win at Burton Albion 2-1 which condemned Hereford United to the next tier down.
Spare a thought though for the goalscorer that day that kept Barnet up in the football league; skipper Mark Hughes was the player that sent the Bees’ faithful into that last day frenzy, but unlike other scorers of important goals such as Juan Mata of Spain (Euro 2012 Final) or Oribe Peralta (London 2012 Olympics Final), Barnet’s Hughes was rewarded with being shown the door by his new employers.
Barnet still have striker Izale Macleod though and he’s a tricky customer who was Barnet’s top scorer last season with 18 goals. However, in pre-season Barnet got thumped 1-4 against newly promoted Championship outfit Charlton, and new manager Mark Robson will need to quickly assess his best squad for the long-haul rather than focus just for this match.
With that in mind and Birmingham’s dominance over the teams lower than them in their pre-season fixtures, I’ll back Birmingham to cover the -1 handicap at St Andrews in what should be a comfortable home win; 2-0 or 3-0 to the Blues.
Pick: Birmingham City AH-1 @ 1.55 Pinnacle
