Match report: Derby County 1 Birmingham City 2
Friendly: Derby County 1 Birmingham City 2
Alex McLeish may have stressed the need for ‘enhancement not replacement’ when it comes to his squad. But Blues aren’t doing too badly at all, thank you, so far in pre-season.
They made it four wins out of four, chalking up a satsifactory victory in what could easily have been a problematic friendly at Pride Park on Saturday. Returning after a two-week trip to the Far East, usually the immediate after effects are sluggishness.
But Blues, after an admittedly slow start, performed with enough drive, wit and were crisp enough against a Rams side who also went into the game unbeaten in their warm-ups.
Blues squad were boosted by the return of James McFadden, who missed Hong Kong and China due his wife giving birth to a son. He got the last 22 minutes as a substitute.
And in David Murphy’s case, who opened the scoring in the 31st minute with a glancing header from Sebastian Larsson’s corner, it is like having another signing now his injury nightmare has ended. Same too with Garry O’Connor.
But McLeish’s reasoned argument is that Blues cannot now just stop and be content with what’s available. Yes, the squad looks decent with cover in all departments, and results and performances so far have been encouraging.
Yet two or three quality players to top it off could make all the difference indeed and only serve to intensify competition positively.
Sandwiching Murphy’s goal were chances for Craig Gardner, whose dynamic form continues to be a pre-season plus.
And once Blues extended the lead in odd circumstances, 49 seconds into the second-half, they could afford to coast a little.
Gareth Roberts rolled the ball back to Stephen Bywater from left-back position and he waited for it to come across his body before clearing.
Larsson, like a hound after a fox, chased it down and Bywater, blindsided a little by the run, was left embarrassed when he finally lumped the ball - Larsson dived in and it cannoned back off his legs into the net, from six yards.
A piledriver from Roberts, who found the roof of the net after Blues didn’t clear a corner well enough, provided Derby with a sniff, in the 58th minute.
And although there were goalmouth scares at the end for Blues - Dean Moxey missed a sitter from six yards at the far post - McLeish’s side could have wrapped up proceedings well before, with O’Connor going clean through only to be thwarted by Bywater.
Nikola Zigic continued to show glimpses of his ability and aptitude. And he raised the biggest cheer of the day among Blues travelling fans in the 4,458 crowd.
Robbie Savage came flying in with a sliding tackle to try and nail Zigic, who was helping out in a defensive position. But Zigic, as cool as you like, turning forward to bring the ball away, toed it one way past Savage and ran round the other to collect. Nice skill, nice feet.
Blues (4-4-2): Foster, Parnaby, Murphy, Ferguson, Johnson, Dann, Larsson (McFadden 68), Gardner, Zigic (Jerome 68), O’Connor (Phillips 75), Fahey. Not used: Taylor, Carr, Bowyer, Ridgewell, Kerr, Michel, Valles, Mutch.
