Good news. This from a brum fan.
It finally had to happen.
It takes a lot to send Blues fans to breaking point. Let's look at what we have done over recent years:
-watched the best players we have brought up in generations be sold for a pittance so that the club can survive - and so that the directors get a huge payday with the proceeds;
-go an entire year without a home win;
-twice avoid relegation on the last day, once with almost the last kick;
-a season in which we have scored precisely 22 goals - the lowest in the League;
-lose 8-0 at home, on top of other five and six goal shellackings;
-play Marc Roberts.
And today was it. The crowd finally turned. Losing in the most spineless, gutless, cowardly display I have seen for a very long time. There are only two outfield players with any credit. Maxime Colin, who is by a distance the player of the season, and Sam Gallagher, both of whom at least gave it a go. And Gallagher should have an asterisk as he should have been red carded after half an hour for an elbow.
Turned to such an extent that Steve Cotterill refused to walk to the changing room at the end of the match via the corner tunnel. He ducked into the medical area under the Main Stand instead. I'm sure that was on police advice as the paddocks - normally the family area and about as dangerous as lukewarm tea - had gone feral. One had thrown his season ticket at the dug-out, and the situation was not improved by one heartless bastard handing it back to him.
Cotterill naturally blamed the fans for the urine-pathetic performance, although that doesn't explain that we have lost the last five games now. Or that there was no turning before we were two down. Or that the turning was most definitely on Cotterill.
To be fair to Cotterill, though, it's not his team. It's not anyone's, really. Other than the agents'. How anyone would think we could challenge for promotion when we only escaped last season by the proverbial, and decided to improve by buying players from the teams who came 10th and 14th, beggars belief. But of course nobody knows who actually is running Blues at the moment. The laughably-titled CEO hasn't made any public presence since October and the club's communications director has taken a vow of silence. I get the distinct impression that the whole thing is part of some elaborate Chinese joke.
And also Cotterill hasn't had any chance to add to the team. We started the New Year bottom of the table and what happened in the transfer window? We got rid of players. We actually made the worst squad worse. This is a special level of genius.
We have known for years that we are weak at left back. We have relied throughout on Jonathan Grounds. Well, he was injured in the Sheffield Wednesday match, and we have approximately 0 fit left backs to replace him. In the time since then, we have played 5, lost 5, scored 1, conceded 14. How is it one player makes such a difference? And a fairly meat & potatoes player at that? How the hell can a club at this level be without a left back? How have we ended up buying players from mid-table clubs in positions we did not need strengthening and selling better players?
2-0 and it could have been a lot worse. Before Barnsley scored they should have been ahead. They missed a penalty when Roberts, the player with the turning circle of Pluto and the speed of erosion, managed to blunder straight through a Barnsley player with the ball nearer me than him. (Not a bad penno, actually, a great save from Stockdale.) And they pretty much went quod habemus, tenemus for the second half. No wonder, this was precious to them and they wanted it. The Blues team? Couldn't give a ****. Jota got a run out and was his usual disgrace. Ndoye, the midfield cannonball with the positional sense of Bugs Bunny, went off to ecstatic delight.
Anyway. Next season will be the interesting one as League 1's FFP is more stringent than the Championship's. We will be in clear breach just because of the wages paid to Jota, Roberts and Ndoye alone. And we can't sell them to anyone because you would have to have the intelligence of a deep sea cucumber to think they are worthwhile additions to a squad. So it will be administration to get shot of these wastes of DNA and a points deduction. Or, given that the current owners only want the club as a side-effect of a Hong Kong listing, worse. I can see them just liquidating the club when it is no longer necessary.
But of course they are all fit and proper.