Birmingham City Preview

Not an awful lot seperates these two teams going into tonights game at Goodison, 6 points and a big shiny pot to be exact, but it comes as somewhat of a surprise to see Birmingham sitting in the bottom three. Alex McCleish sits proudly in the first page of The David Moyes Textbook of Premiership Football Management. He represents what a number of other teams/boardrooms have replicated over the last few years after seeing the skant rewards Everton gained from supporting an ambitious, determined young manager for a sustained period of time.



To some clubs(and their fans), just to sit round sniffing at the golden trotters of the established order of bloated glory Pigs(Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal etc) each season at Rupert Murdochs money trough, is enough for them, hence the hard to beat Moyes-a-like teams sprouting up all over the country.



Birmingham look a bit like a case in point too, youth and home grown players encouraged and supported into the team, mix that in with experienced captains and the odd savvy overseas buy and you've gone and got yourself a top flight football team. Envious but curteous glances will be cast to Mcleish's side by all at Everton this evening, for managing to get hold of what has turned out to be the elusive holy grail for David Moyes and the teams he has built, lost, had taken away from him ever since he arrived almost a decade ago.



Moyes commands respect for everything he has done at Everton in that time, and the wider footballing community, bar the majority of Anfield, seem to hand out the plaudits and back slaps he rightly deserves. What none of these manage to get rid of though is the growing primate taken refuge right between his shoulder blades, a trophy. The fact is, Alex McLeish probably isnt as good a manager as David Moyes given both clubs standings in the game and their respective expectations/achievements etc, but all that is ever remembered in football are medals.

Birmingham are certainly no better than Everton, but they managed to do what most mid level sides fail to do these days, i.e. beat one of the larger monied teams when it mattered. As it happens, a tireless work rate together with a massive slice of luck proved to be enough on the day. Thats what it comes down to though and how small it is, a chewed up scrap of a nothing competition being dropped from the mouths of the haves, right into the grateful hungry mouth of a have not.



Whateverthefuck, to the game. Birmingham as well as suffering a post Wembley hangover, have a veritble flurry of injuries to contend with according to a number of websites. With Dann(DAN!), Hleb, Ferguson, Gardener and el lurchio Zigic all looking like they are struggling, which is good for us. Whilst we're without long term casualties Cahill and Fellaini as well as skipper Phil Neville. Tony Hibbert will post an unenviable record this evening if he starts after his impressive game up at Newcastle, the most capped Everton player ever to not score a goal.

Lump on Hibbert 1-0 then, i fancy Everton tonight. Riots everywhere with Zulus afterwards.