My club, My passion, My love

For as long as I can recall, Birmingham City Football Club has been my primary passion, the most important thing in every week and I would ensure I spectated as much as possible. No matter how breathtakingly bad it was or how overwhelmingly exciting it was, there was always passion. The tide is beginning to turn. Finding my self making the trip to St. Andrews expecting to throw away points is not how it should be. It’s really quite difficult to pinpoint the problem this season. Lee Clark, with extremely small resources, managed to change a team who had in total double figure loan players, into a real squad with only two loan players in Grant Hall from Tottenham and Brek Shea from Stoke. On the surface, the new squad appears to be stronger than that of last years. So what is the problem?

Managers are easy cannon fodder in modern football and are easily tossed aside for their respective clubs and scapegoated. Often this is very harsh and unfair, however when it really comes down to it, Lee Clark is responsible for getting results for his team and this is simply not happening. Tactics have been a huge talking point at St. Andrews this season and its really no surprise. Other blues fans will remember full back Tyler Blackett playing central defence, despite having a natural central defender playing wide and Paul Caddis and Callum Riley playing in each others positions. This season we are yet to see much of Lee Clarks 'Bingo Ball' team selection however, I have witnessed many an error. Too many times this season have I watched my beloved blues go into half time winning, only to throw away victory. By the time we played Norwich, most blues fans felt on edge, nervous and aware that 2-0 up at half time meant we wouldn't be leaving with all three points. Its almost as though Clark has gotten to grips with his team but when an opponent changes shape or just general mentality, we are unable to cope with the change. Or is it the team talk? It sounds extremely far fetched due to the amount of times this happens, however not ridiculous. Intensity and pressure seems to drop and we seem to lack focus. Would Lee Clark making the players feel like the game has already been won have this affect? However if that's true and players feel like they've won so they lower their effort, is that not down to the individual players? The players should look at them selves and consider whether actually they could do far more for their team.