Birmingham City FC v Brentford FC
St.Andrew’s Sat 12/09/20 - 12.30pm
As we begin a new season and most squads and management undergo a reset, it is difficult to talk about potential league line-ups and form.
We can have an idea about the direction a coach will go in but until we hit games that mean anything, most of what we see on the pitch has the potential to be tagged under the experimental heading.
That being said, we have seen new Birmingham Head Coach, Aitor Karanka, consecutively use the same lineup and system from the start in his last two games, once home and once away, both ending in 1 nil defeats.
Ahead of the league curtain raiser against The Bees, Blues have now lost three in quick succession, the most recent of those defeats coming at home to Cambridge United in the Carabao Cup.
Scoring no goals and conceding four in the process, it would be easy to attribute these losses to a rudderless side wanting another month to pass before the real stuff begins.
As we tweeted earlier in pre-season, Birmingham are showing the early signs of a bit of an overhaul.
How much of this is down to the absence of target man Jutkiewicz or Karanka wanting to move the ball through the thirds putting full faith in Crowley playing in the 10 role is yet to be seen, but as mentioned in the thread, a 4231 or 451 system with a ball playing goalkeeper is a very different proposition to non-ballplaying Lee Camp and Hogan alongside Jutkiewicz spearheading a direct 442.
These green shoots of system change may or may not be meaningful in the long term, because as much as Karanka could be hinting at a more expansive ball playing model to take Birmingham up the league, if his side can’t defend basic set pieces, they will not be going anywhere too lofty too soon.
The deciding set-piece goal for Cambridge to knock Birmingham out of the cup came from Dean giving away a silly foul in midfield when trying to win a header he was always going to be second best, unnecessarily wiping out Mullen.
The resulting free-kick, taken from this innocuous central position in the middle third, will sound alarm bells for Karanka as his side prepares to face Brentford and the likes of Pinnock on Saturday 12th September.
The set piece with 17 minutes gone sees Birmingham opting for a man marking system and that system easily rumbled by a simple delayed run from U’s Captain Taylor.
As the set-piece is being deliberated, the three players the ball is likely to be directed towards are outnumbered by 5 on that side. Taylor is circled throughout.
All Cambridge do in this situation is have their captain begin a slow walk towards the right of the box from the ball deliberation area and speed up his run on the referees whistle to the back post creating a 4v3 throwing Birmingham’s man marking system right off moments before the free kick is taken.
Danny Crowley shouts back and points to Taylor as he advances yet nobody in the backline reacts, especially Dean, who is resolute in holding his central zone marking position, instead of shifting across or alerting Šunjić. Is he too safe in the knowledge that the left side has the numbers to cope? In the end, it doesn’t.
The ball is eventually looped high, dropping on the corner of the 6 yard box with Pedersen is caught between watching Taylor, the inconspicuously slow runner from Lakin’s side wide left leaving Friend now outnumbered and blocked 2 to 1 under the dropping ball. GK Prieto senses the issue and tries to come and punch all too late as Cundy follows the flight of the ball and gets a clean connection to nod into an empty net.
It’s a well worked goal from Cambridge, only possible due to the early stage partnerships in the backline and Karanka possibly not yet perfecting his man and zonal markers.
We’ve picked up on this set-piece weakness because this will not be good enough against Brentford and the team will rub their hands at the opportunity to outnumber a Lakin on the back post.
From an attacking sense as the game developed, we saw more of the patient build-up involving the backline and centre midfielders, prevalent against Spurs. Birmingham got into their flow and again retained the ball better than we have seen in recent years, switching play when possible and recycling the ball in the final third when avenues were blocked.
The context of Cambridge having a lead to defend must be taken into account with some of the phases that developed, yet it is refreshing to see the advancement of Birmingham in attacking phases and building up with Adan George dropping to get on the ball in the hole, Lakin move into the frontline from wide left, Crowley and Bela coming narrow to feet and with Colin out of picture but wide right overlapping and providing width.
New signings
Having sold wonderkid Jude Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund, Birmingham are reversing part of the financial mismanagement of previous years. Almost all incommings, barring a nominal fee paid for winger Jonathan Leko, have been players unattached and picked up as free transfers.
Toral, well known to Brentford and Birmingham fans, re-joins Blues, this time permanently from relegated Hull City. Toral will offer variety to midfielders who tend to hold their position behind the ball and go forwards. Adam Clayton, who fits the holding position mold is another former Karanka player, joining George Friend in the ranks to further bolster their impressive midfield depth, still featuring Josh McEachran. Out wide, Ivan Sanchez appears to be a clever pickup, as was Bela last year, from the second tier in Spain. Sanchez has the ability to go past players with close control, his issues will be a lack of space and how quickly he can adapt to defenders facing him up on his first and second touches. Karanka’s potential switch to a more ball dominant style could well suit the Spaniard from Elche.
Birmingham Attacking and Defensive shapes below
For Brentford, transfer speculation and internationals have played havoc with the squeezed off season and pre-season period so we’re yet to see anywhere near Thomas Frank’s best side out on the field. The new stadium effect poses both positives and negatives as football continues without fans. The fear here is that Lionel Road is a nice place to play football for all involved without any home advantage amassed. There is likely more incomings in the wide areas as Brentford look short of the previous quality to open up teams at will with Valencia and Canos hopefully limited to cameo roles and seeing out games that are already won rather than decisive first team minutes.
Good run outs for Ivan Toney, finally signed from Peterbrough, in the main central striker role against Oxford and Wycombe are pleasing, the concern for Frank will be the inability to pick his best team with Benrahma and Watkins futures undecided and no doubt going to the wire as well as Mbeumo hopefully coming back from France U21 duty in better form than he returned from the early international break last season.
The international disruption cannot be helped or liked by the Brentford Head Coach as he tries to have everybody tuned in and ready to go for the first game this weekend. The right back position looks light with a concerning injury to Roerslev and an aging Dalsgaard could see Sergi Canos moved back and a return to an older system or Rico Henry deputise, as he has done in pre-season, on his weaker side.
The solid defensive structure built by Frank is what took Brentford all the way to the play-off final and narrowly missing out to Fulham. Goode has been brought in to maintain this and has had good minutes in pre-season alongside Pinnock. The weakening of the side from front to back in the trial games and rustiness of the backline in possession has been ruthlessly punished so far but whatever the early results, Goode looks a huge upgrade in possession and from defensive set-pieces on the weak on the ball and clumsy Jeanvier.
Last season’s drop off in team quality when Jeanvier deputised for Jansson was astronomical and Brentford can begin to move on from the man from Guinea who has secured a loan to try to reignite his career at Kasımpaşa in Turkey.
Predicted lineup v Birmingham