Although Alan Pardew has done an unbelievable job at Newcastle it was a complete shock to see Chris Hughton sacked with the toon sat comfortably in 11th. We all wondered when we would see him back in management and it came when he joined recently relegated Birmingham City.
Birmingham City has all sorts of problems surrounding Carson Yeung and faced with a season in the Championship there was max exodus from Birmingham City. The midlands side lost key players such as: Scott Dann, Roger Johnson, Ben Foster, Craig Gardner, Sebastian Larsson, Liam Ridgewell, Jean Beausejour and several other first team players.
Many Birmingham City fans feared the worst for the new campaign and would have settled just to remain in England’s second tier of football. Personally, I think it’s a blessing in disguise that Birmingham got relegated. Since relegation they have managed to reduce their large wage bill, remove an average manager and get in a Hughton who managed to get Newcastle out of the division at the first time of asking.
Birmingham had a slow start to the campaign but as Hughton got used to his surroundings the results came for the midlands club. Another highlight was the club’s run in the Europa league which saw them narrowly miss out on qualifying for the knockout stages of the competition. Hughton has managed to introduce youth and experience as Blues have continued to climb the table. The form of highly rated Nathan Redmond has been a credit to his belief in the youngster’s at the club along with Jordan Mutch.
After knocking out Premier League outfit Wolves in the F.A. cup and then earning a replay against Chelsea, Blues are showing the quality to put on a late push for the automatic promotion places and put pressure on Southampton and West Ham.
Birmingham City slipped up against strugglers Nottingham Forest at the weekend, which ended an incredible 15 match unbeaten run at St Andrews which has been a fortress this season. This was largely down to the returning Dexter Blackstock who has been out for over a year with a cruciate knee ligament injury. He scored a brace which gave Forest a shock win and lifted them out of the relegation places.
With 14 games remaining for Birmingham City I for one would definitely not rule them out of the promotion race and think it is pretty much nailed on they will at the very least end up in the top six come the end of the season.
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