44% chance of us winning this, but we know it has a draw written all over...probably 1-1 Birmingham boss Steve Cotterill's first full game in charge. Like Jota, striker Che Adams and utility man Jason Lowe may also be available after hamstring problems. Championship leaders Cardiff are hopeful midfielder Aron Gunnarsson will be fit and he will be assessed after helping Iceland reach the World Cup. Gabon's Bruno Manga and Neil Etheridge of the Philippines are doubtful after late returns from international duty. Birmingham's Equatorial Guinea right-back Emilio Nsue also faces a quick turnaround to be included, having not been due to return until Thursday, while fellow full-back Carl Jenkinson (dislocated shoulder) remains sidelined. Trevor Francis expected to be on the bench! New Blues boss Cotterill was in the stands for their 6-1 loss at Hull last time out, after replacing Harry Redknapp. SAM's prediction Home win 28% Draw 28% Away win 44% SAM, the Sports Analytics Machine, is a super-computer built by @ProfIanMcHale of the University of Liverpool. Match facts Birmingham have won one of their past 11 league meetings with Cardiff (D6 L4), a 1-0 victory at St. Andrew's in December 2015. The Bluebirds have picked up two wins in their past 27 away visits to Birmingham in all competitions and haven't scored a single goal in any of their last three. Steve Cotterill is set to take charge of his first Birmingham match - his last league meeting against Neil Warnock came in March 2012, with Cotterill's Nottingham Forest inflicting a 7-3 defeat on Warnock's Leeds side. Cotterill has collected 23 from a possible 81 points in his past 27 home Championship games (W5 D8 L14). Nathaniel Mendez-Laing has been involved in 10 goals in his past 14 league games (four goals, six assists). Cardiff have won three more league matches in 2017 (18) than they managed in the entirety of 2016 (15) 1 Cardiff 11 8 24 2 Wolves 11 8 23 3 Sheff Utd 11 5 21 4 Bristol City 11 9 20 5 Leeds 11 7 20 6 Preston 11 7 20 7 Aston Villa 11 7 19 8 Ipswich 10 4 18 9 Norwich 11 -2 18 10 Fulham 11 4 17 11 Middlesbrough 11 4 16 12 Sheff Wed 11 3 16 13 Nottm Forest 11 -4 15 14 Millwall 11 1 13 15 Derby 10 0 13 16 QPR 11 -1 13 17 Hull 11 3 12 18 Barnsley 10 -2 11 19 Brentford 11 -2 9 20 Reading 10 -3 9 21 Burton 11 -17 9 22 Birmingham 11 -12 8 23 Sunderland 11 -9 7 24 Bolton 11 -18 2
Sky jinx at lowly clubs continues. Bham away on sky is again a 0-1 defeat. That’s 3 in a row. Terrible game. Ref was appalling. Bham played the ref. Blatant penalty for a kick in Bennett’s face. City were woeful. Had a few decent breaks but no real style of play, just useless punts up the field. Very disappointing. Too many players were average. Why didn’t Warnock make changes at half time? What have they been doing for 2 weeks? On this showing we’ll do well to be in top 6 for much longer. That’s 2 games without a goal now.
That was the worst Cardiff performance in a long time. Second best all evening. Hope Colin sorts this out for the next game or we'll be heading south in the table.
No gloss to put on that game - we were dire. Slow and second best all over the pitch. Brum were sharp, had pace and were quicker to every second ball. Don't know what Warnock did with them during the international break but it didn't work. The players looked like they've just come back off the beach. You can blame the ref for not giving us a penalty for Bennett's kick in the face, but if we'd scored from that it would have been robbery for a point. In midfield we couldn't pass a ball between two players with any consitency - Ralls, Bryson and Bamba were out of it. I've never seen the front three play so far apart. Hoilett, Mendez and Zohore were isolated across the entire width of the pitch and the midfield never filled the gaps - bloody hopeless football. Unless Warnock and Blackwell gets the side back on track during the week, Boro away next Saturday looks frightening.
To be honest I didn't know you had Blackwell. He was, in my opinion, better than Warnock. A good draw with lots of yellow cards against Boro would do nicely
My concern is 2 consecutive blanks. To be fair to Zahore he made 3 chances which but for good defending would have seen us win as Bham offered little notwithstanding they were dominant. I don’t see what Ward was supposed to do in 10 minutes. Start him and Damour & Tomlin for some creativity and pace. ML & Hoilett in particular were ineffective. That needs addressing. Boro haven’t set the league alight and it’s about time we got a result up there.
You wont win them all no team does, Bad games happen for all sorts of reasons so i would not worry too much as long as you play more good games than bad throughout the season...
