Keep right on to the end of the road...

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VIEW FROM THE KOP...

With our very own Kop correspondant

Ian Smith

Well well, it has been a long time; just over 18 months infact since my pearls of wisdom, advice and opinions have featured on the pages on this website, (which is looking grand I may add).

Since the time of my last writing I have finally finished my University degree and am now plying my experpertise at npower – making the world a bluer/greener place. (Before anyone thinks it, no, I cannot personally save you money of your bills).

The reason my column stopped is that with my final year at University being so important and the workload increasing dramatically I had to actually do some work; rather than just spending the day in the pub and the night in a club; though I never missed a game! My emotions – anger and tears – were never displayed last year when we fell from grace but I have decided to up and start my column’s again - as our song and my column’s used to say – keep right on, sing it loud and sing it proud.

The end of the season is now in sight but our “happy abode” may not be. This season has been rough thus far, many disgruntled fans, many stay away fans, lots of anger, lots of finger pointing and some decent displays of football in between.

All the palaver that surrounded Matty Upson’s departure just got on everyone’s nerves – and as always in football there was a lot more than met the eye, and the truth of it will never be known, but along with the departure of Bowen, Savage, relegation and everything else it is now in the past – we need to look into the future, and our team has some form of one for the future.

As there always have been, there are some players that I like, some I cannot stand but none I don’t have an opinion on! At University I picked up the saying “If you always do, what you always did then you always get, what you always got”, I believe that Birmingham have done this in keeping hold of a manager for too long – what have they got – a mess.

I do not like fans that get on a managers back, the players back, the board’s back – it does no good – BUT – it is how we get our voices heard. The last eighteen months; at the very least, we have dealt out poor footballing performances. I said at the start of the season, and I still think it now; we will go up, second place behind West Brom, purely on the basis that our players are superior to everyone else’s – not because we play good football.

Under a decent manager, we would have walked this league, (just like Reading did); you CAN get out of this league by playing football, not just by battling your way out of it. My Dad, (the pinnacle of all my knowledge – and the only person I believe knows more about football than myself), maintains that the worst thing that happened to Birmingham this year was winning at Derby.

Had they lost then Bruce would have gone – true? Who knows? We both want the club to win, but we want good football too. I always say to him that it doesn’t matter, if we fail to go up – Bruce will go. If we go up we will get beat game after game and Bruce will go. Either way, come October, Bruce will no longer be at the club.

I hated Steve Bruce when he signed a playing contract extension in 1998 and then “did one” to Sheffield United a week later, I loved him when he took us up and I hated him when he brought us down. He’s a nice bloke but I feel like I’m watching my best mate fail at his job. Although I would love him to do well – he never will, some of his decisions recently I have been shocked by, and some of his tactics I find shocking.

The performance against Leeds was average, in fact I don’t think it was that good, on another day we could have been 3 nil down at half time, but we won and I’m happy with that. I’m going to spend the rest of this article commenting on the players so far this season, then after this I will be back to my weekly round ups, which I know caused some disagreements but did cause you all to read them.

Maik Taylor – I feel sorry for him and don’t think he has done much wrong.

Colin Doyle – played well since he came in, but his kicking! Bloody hell! Does he want to kick the ball any higher?

Steven Kelly – has got better every game he played, needs to get forward more.

Bruno N’Gotty – don’t know where he disappeared to for those few months, not a right back at all, played okay – an intelligent footballer, accomplished centre half.

Olivier Tebily – he has also disappeared, the year we went up he was a formidable centre-half, not really given a chance this year.

Raidi Jaidi – in think he is awful, slow, a danger to our team and plain and simple – not good enough.

Martin Taylor – he looks good on the ball, distribution is good too, in his element because he is too good for this league but not good enough for the premiership.

Matt Sadler – tries his heart out, will not be good enough if we go up

Damien Johnson – the captaincy has ruined him, moving him out to the right has ruined him, but how can a professional midfielder have one shot everyone four years? Not good enough.

Sebastian Larsson – I like him but why o why does he persist in running at Steven Kelly when he has the ball, you think he would run at the opposition’s full back and into the opposing half not at his team-mate.

Mehdi Nafti – awful, never ever makes an attempt to join in the attack, I have seen snails move faster

Stephen Clemence – a true footballer, strings nice passes together, tackles well, a leader and this season has added some goals too.

Fabrice Muamba – go go gadget legs, he just has no idea at going forward or passing.

Neil Danns – he is known as the duck over in the Kop – is he flat-footed? He just seems to come on and kick the ball back to the player who gave it him.

Neil Kilkenny – his face obviously doesn’t fit, can pick out a pass, and looks very comfortable on the ball yet he is never played. Why?

Gary McSheffery – where would we be without him? 10th? 15th? Bottom? Who knows contributed to almost 30 goals this season – the only danger is he is becoming the next Pennant – our only passage of play, once a team doubles up on him – we’re stuck.

Cameron Jerome – the new Emile Heskey, he needs the run onto through balls, he has pace and power yet we persist on hitting balls at his head.

Niclas Bendthner – he has class but his attitude is all wrong.

DJ Campbell – 14 starts and 8 goals (something like that) this lad is a cracking player, runs his socks off, plays intelligent passes, scores goals and yet is never rewarded with a run in the team – gets 5 minutes on the pitch here and there.

Rowan Vine – reserving judgement, my mates who are Luton fans – swear by him.

My opinions will probably not change, maybe I’m guilty like Bruce in the fact I sometimes get my favourites. I could never see anything wrong in Paul Devlin and Martin Grainger…I’m more than happy for people to challenge me on these!

So it’s another week gone by and Cardiff to come to St. Andrews, I tell you now, they will struggle, but they play football and they battle and if mirror this – we’ll win. Player for player we’re better, let us just hope Brucie has got his tactics right! Sing it loud and sing it proud – from the cradle to the grave…Keep Right On.

Keep Right On