Much has been made this season of Manchester City’s increasing threat to United’s dominance, courtesy of an unprecedented outlay on new players over the summer, while a similarly strengthened Spurs squad has seen them close the gap on North London neighbours Arsenal.
The rivalry between the Midlands’ two big clubs (apologies to Wolves and West Brom fans) has been a rather one-sided affair for decades, but now Birmingham City are back in the top flight and look here to stay; much to the distain of Aston Villa fans. They showed tremendous character at the weekend to come back from a two-goal deficit to gain a point against in-form Everton, proving that they can truly ‘mix it with the big boys’ as the cliché goes.
Birmingham now lie eighth in the Premier League table directly behind fierce rivals Aston Villa, who pulled five points clear of them with their win at Wigan last night. They travel to Villa Park on 25th April in what could potentially be a crucial game in terms of European qualification for both sides, perhaps even at the expense of the other.
A sign of the times
There was a clear sign in January that the gulf between the two sides had narrowed significantly, as it emerged that both Birmingham and Villa were reportedly front runners in the race for the pre-contract signature of Rangers striker Kris Boyd. Such an agreement never materialised in the transfer window, but with his contract set to expire in May, Boyd’s future is still uncertain.
The claret and blue half of Birmingham have chosen to sneer at the fact that Liam Ridgewell and new signing Craig Gardner, both of whom failed to make the grade at Villa Park, are now regular starters for Birmingham. However if Kris Boyd were to join them at St. Andrews in the summer and snub Aston Villa in the process, it would be sure to throw this assumed superiority among the Villa faithful into doubt.
Both teams will be looking to sign a striker in the summer with Aston Villa eager to replace the ageing Emile Heskey and/or John Carew, while Birmingham will seek to improve on this season’s disappointing goal tally. Cameron Jerome has been in exceptional form of late, but McLeish is sure to be on the look-out for that elusive 20-goals-a-season man.
Cash injection
Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung has indicated that there will be funds for Alex McLeish to spend on new players, including a £40m war chest that was supposedly available in January. McLeish instead chose to be prudent in the transfer window, not following through with moves for Ryan Babel and Roman Pavlyuchenko. Both were believed to be in the region of £10m and perhaps represented too much of a gamble on two players who have underperformed in the Premier League.
We have seen this season with Torres at Liverpool and Van Persie at Arsenal how injuries to individual players can have a massive effect on a club’s progress. While Birmingham don’t perhaps boast such star players, but it would be interesting to see how they would cope without the reliability of Roger Johnson or industry of Lee Bowyer, both of whom have been in tremendous form this season. The Blues owe much of their impressive defensive record to the continuity of the back four, who have been virtually ever-present this season. Were they to lose a couple of key players for any length of time, defensive frailties could well be exposed. A strong squad can limit the impact that such injuries have and McLeish would do well to invest in defensive cover over the summer.
Managerial stability
McLeish is in talks with the club over extending his current contract, set to expire next summer. The Scotsman may feel however that he has taken the club as far as he can and look for a fresh challenge elsewhere. The powers-that-be at Liverpool are thought to be monitoring his situation closely, while there will be no shortage of admirers elsewhere of McLeish’s achievements at Birmingham, particularly given the limited resources he has had to work with.
It is vital that Birmingham persuade McLeish to stay on, if anything simply for the sake of continuity, something the club have valued in recent years with McLeish’s predecessors Steve Bruce and Trevor Francis both enjoying long reigns at St. Andrews. It’s no secret that successful clubs tend to be the ones who keep faith with the same manager season after season, rather than those who prefer to chop and change at the first sign of trouble. This managerial stability combined with continued financial backing should be the recipe for a bright future for Birmingham City.
Building for the future
Still, let’s not get carried away here. Birmingham City still have a long way to go to surpass their closest rivals. In the immediate future it’s hard to see them rising above over an Aston Villa side seemingly going from strength to strength under Martin O’Neill. Newly-promoted sides that exceed expectations on arrival in Premier League often experience a difficult second season. The next eighteen months or so will give us a fair idea how much of a sustained threat Birmingham City can pose to Aston Villa’s Midlands dominance. In the meantime Birmingham fans should simply rejoice in their league position and keep their fingers crossed for a European adventure sometime soon.