Aston Villa v Birmingham City
It's the 'morning after' feeling today for Birmingham City fans. Yep, try as you might to rid yourselves of the awful hangover-type effects, Blues fans, the truth is the truth, however hard to swallow it might be. You were absolutely, totally, comprehensively routed by your cross-city rivals Villa on Sunday, and your football club is heading for relegation. Time for a super-strong coffee and a fry-up and a reflection of how things have gone so wrong.
Birmingham-Villa matches are usually nothing if not tight and tense affair. But Villa won the game yesterday at a stroll. They won 5-1, but could have scored double figures. Blues were awful, apart from a decent opening ten minute spell, and the defeat now leaves them in the bottom three with three games to go. Suddenly, a speedy return to the Championship is very much on the cards.
Blues have gone backwards in the last few weeks and as their form has deserted them, Sunderland and Wigan's upturn saw them gradually sucked back into danger. Now that Bolton have won successive Premier League matches, Birmingham can't hide any longer. When they dropped into the bottom three at the weekend, it was for the first time for two months; Alex McLeish and his team probably thought they were safe until then. It's almost as if all the off-field talk of takeovers and investigations have distracted them from what's actually happening on the pitch – which is a gradual slump in performance and form.
They always seemed right on the fringes of the danger, not in the thick of it. Well, they are now. Next up for Birmingham City? Liverpool. Oh dear, oh dear. Want to bets on sports? Or just bet on Premier League, then take a look at Bodog's Premier League odds.
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