BRUM IS BLUE!

Blues played their first pre-season friendly t the weekend and put in a convincing, exciting performance as they beat La Liga’s Seville 3-1. The wave of positive momentum almost wants me to run off and declare the season finished, but I’m going to remain in reality instead and look at the positives in a balanced, impartial way. Heaven forbid a Bluenose has high hopes, it’s not in our nature surely!

So, the game itself. Blues named a fairly strong line up for the first half and it didn’t weaken much in the second half when there was a full switch. Blues pressed well in the first half and were rewarded within ten minutes through Keshi Anderson. The lead was doubled by the half hour mark as Klarer found the net after a missed opportunity by Stansfield.

There were plenty of decent performances in the first half but I feel it would be remiss of me not to comment on the latest academy graduate Zaid Betteka. Betteka was instrumental in Anderson’s goal, creating the space in Seville’s half to allow a lovely weighted pass that landed perfectly for Anderson. At 18 years old could it be we see him stake a claim to get into the first team squad? It would be another fantastic success story for the academy as Betteka has been with the club since age 10.

There was a full line up switch for the second half as Davies looks at the entire squad, Seville also came out stronger in the second half though and managed to pull a goal back against Beadle who was brought on to replace Allsop at half time. Seville brought out a bit more pressure second half but Marc Leonard stood up and took charge with a fantastic 30 odd yard free kick right into the top corner.

It’s a contrast to the start to last years pre-season campaign which began with a crushing defeat to SC Paderborn 07 which Blues lost 5-0. It is a bit of a reality check in terms of not taking much from pre-season as we went on to beat the global points tally, once upon a time I used to say things like “We have a poor season when we do well in pre-season,” but even that’s not been the case in the last couple of years.

For me, it’s been a great opportunity to see a couple of the new players and for Davies I suspect that it allows him to see if the players have taken on board what the work on in training. In fact he said so much in his post match interview as well as erring on the side of rational as he took positives but highlighted Blues have been back raising their fitness levels for a week longer than Seville.

Blues are back in action tomorrow as they take place in the Arthur Cup at Damson Park. It’s another opportunity for the lads to get a run out and I suspect we will see a fairly similar line up each half, perhaps with a greater sprinkling of youth given how well Betteka performed. It will be the fourth instalment of the annual cup which Blues have only suffered defeat in once.