Birmingham City 4-1 Tottenham Hotspur

[funster]

Oh dear. What an embarrassing scoreline. Who would've believed that the Brum would've hit us for 7-3 on aggregate over the two Premier League games? Not me.

I was actually on a stag-do - my own, funnily enough! - in Leamington Spa this weekend and with no other activity organised for Saturday we decided to head to St Andrews. As much to keep us out of the pubs as anything else! Naturally, being the stag I had to wear the £20 budget clothing that I had picked up that morning at the local charity shop. Amazing what you can actually get for that kind of cash! A two-foot high Winnie The Pooh was added for comedy effect. Naturally, there were a lot of strange looks in my direction - possibly as much to do with the fact that the shoes were a size too small as anything else.

£30 a ticket, no problems getting them, you've got to wonder about the Brum support. Plenty of changes in the Spurs side as we got into the stadium. No Woodgate, no King, no Jenas, no Keane. Hardly surprising. With PSV on Thursday to come - and an away second leg in Eindhoven - our priority was clearly progress in the UEFA Cup.

It was an odd experience. Watching Spurs at an away game sat with the home support. We were massed in row two with nobody in front so I thought to myself that I would really have to make an effort to keep quiet if we scored or it would be curtains. Little chance of that! As usual the Spurs contingent had put in a great appearance and there looked to be no spare seats in the away end. Plenty of singing proved the supporters were in good spirits after last Sunday. Also as usual, not a peep out of the home support.

With a side showing so many changes it wasn't going to be too surprising to see us fail to really click, but actually it wasn't too bad. The first half overall was pretty tight. Brum in no real position to concede, probably looking to keep it as tight as possible and look to sneak one from a set piece. And so it came to pass. It didn't take long for Forsell to open the scoring, but we really should've handled the corner better. Oh well. The Brum fans sat behind me went nuts. I sat there, arms crossed.

The goal went some way to shaking us up and we strung a few passes together and mounted a few decent attacks. Berbatov went closest, crashing one against the post having taken the ball down well, although the Brum fans were clearly aggrieved not to have seen a handball given. O'Hara too had a couple of chances, but really nothing too memorable.

Berbatov was frustrated. Understandably at times, not so at others. There was a passage of play where for about five minutes he just couldn't be arsed after having received a ball from Hutton later than he wanted, and driven too hard for him to control. He got his 'revenge' by firing a chip back at Hutton a few minutes later that needed the Scot to exert more effort than he should've needed to to keep the ball in play. Tut tut. Thankfully, the strop was soon over.

Most bizarre experience of the first half was the strangest offside decision I've ever seen. Berbatov coming back from within the Brum half to pick the ball up in our own, flagged offside by the assistant. What?! Offside in our own half? Can't imagine the assessor would've been too impressed with that one.

So, a tight first half with the sides separated by a goal from a set piece. We should've taken one of the chances we created. There were enough of them. Bent was beginning to get into the game a bit. Running with pace as the ball was played to him, but really, it didn't inspire the type of confidence we have when Keane partners Berbatov. We were also missing the running that Jenas provides in the centre. Huddlestone not nearly mobile enough to do this, Zokora content with picking the ball up and passing without making enough progress up the pitch.

Big changes for the second half with Keane thrown on in place of Malbranque who had expended plenty of effort in running with the ball but failed to beat any of the Brum players. Jenas also on replacing Tainio meaning a shuffle of the pack at the back with Zokora dropping back to partner Kaboul and Chimbonda out to full-back. Nothing too out of the ordinary there, and with Keane and Jenas on, the hope that we could salvage something. I actually had us down for 2-1 in the sweepstake amongst the stag party. Maybe.....

Sadly not. Another early goal from the Brum, this time a free-kick from Larsson. Where have I seen his name before with a screamer against Spurs? It looked a very good goal direct from the free-kick. Fair play. I sat, motionless, as those around me celebrated. Watching the replay Robbo was probably at fault, much like last week in the Final. He seemed miles away from it, and good though the execution was, either he was out of position, or the wall was. Either way, sounds like a goalkeeping error.

Ho hum. That seemed to knock us a bit and we just didn't get ourselves back into the game for the next few minutes. Oh, and that's all it took for Birmingham to extend the lead to three. From a Spurs attack that broke down on the edge of the Brum box Jenas misjudged the header coming out and as it skimmed off the top of head, the Brum broke quickly and after a very good save by Robbo from one of our own players, Forsell was there to smash in from an angle. Game over pretty much. I should say that just before this Robbo had pulled off a tremendous saving, tipping over from low down.

I left my seat. Time to pay a visit to the bogs. I was gone a fair while. The curry from the previous night needing to be removed from my system. My mates thought I'd left I was gone that long! Enough time for Chris Gunter to replace Zokora, oh, and for Birmingham to make it four. The Brum fans simply couldn't believe it. I think they were in shock at the scoreline.

I made my way back to my seat to see us pull one back, a decent one too. Strong running from Jenas in the middle, the ball laid off and rebounding to Jenas who had continued his run to squeeze in a consolation. The sense of humour hadn't disappeared from the travelling support - "Five-four! We're gonna win five-four!". We had the chances to reduce the deficit too! O'Hara in particular got himself into some very good positions squirming this way and that, but none of his shots was close enough to the mark.

Final whistle. An end to what ended up being a calamitous scoreline.

The defeat didn't come as a surprise. Clearly I wasn't going to bet against Spurs in the sweepstake, but I knew I was taking one for the team there. Four-one though. I couldn't have predicted that and I bet none of the Brum fans could either.

The reality is four-one is an unfair scoreline. I was the only Spurs fan amongst the stag party and none of them thought it was representative of the game. Take a look at the stats. We had more possession, more shots. So how on Earth did we end up losing four-one? Simple. They converted more chances than we did. Fair play to them. Forsell clearly had his shooting boots on and the Cup hangover, while not as strong as I thought it would've been, coupled with one eye on Thursday night, all contributed.

We weren't that bad. I read through the thread in the Players Lounge about the game before posting this. Did any of the posters actually go to the game? Considered opinions gratefully received, but frankly, unless you're there you can't determine exactly what made the difference on the day. Certainly not by watching Match of the Day!

Birmingham will not convert that effectively for the rest of the season and I dare say we will. That's no excuse for a four-one reversal. We were short. It would be nice to say that dropping as many players as we did was the reason, but with Keane and Jenas on in the second half when we conceded three times, its a difficult argument to make.

Like I said, this was an embarrassing scoreline. One I don't ever want to see repeated, but some perspective is required. We weren't as bad as is being made out and while the level of effort could be questioned in certain areas, with the number of shots we got away, we could've at least narrowed the deficit.

The stag party left, Winnie the Pooh included, and sank a couple of pints at The Newt under New Street while analysing the rest of the results. I won the sweep! Correct score predictions for the games at Arsenal, Fulham and St James's were good enough to see me a point clear. Unfortunately, nothing was as painful for the stag himself - not the two foot high Winnie the Pooh, not the too-tight shoes, not the preponderance of man made fibres - as the humbling scoreline at St Andrews. Well, almost nothing..... it turned out I spent a large part of the remainder of the evening sat on the bog still feeling the after-effects of the previous night's curry!

[berby999]

good report funster, thanks. Hope you cleared your system!

[yidno1]

Good report as usual, just sorry you had to endure that tripe, they should be ashamed of themselfs.

I watched the whole game again and i disagree with you, I thought we got exactly what we desered which was a thumping, yeah we had a few chances but didnt take em and if wasnt for Robbo it could have been more.

Ive said enough on this game in a previous thread but for me Ramos got this very wrong in his starting eleven.

Just crap all over.