Brum - Thick and Fast (A) - 15 Aug 19:45

[Worthy4England]

No rest for the wicked this week.

Whilst Appy Arry is grumbling about lack of fit strikers, they've lost narrowly to Ipswich (A) and beaten Brizzle City at home, so probably not too unhappy. There's not many teams won 2 out of 2 so far, I'm thinking this is going to be another toughie.

I do think we have to try and keep them to Nil and nick one...Probably same team that started on Saturday.

[TANGODANCER]

I think this season's going to be as much of a lottery as last; moreso now that the injury demon is still haunting the dressing room. We've missed out on quality before with the likes of Holden and Mark Davis suffering absentia, and already Sammi, Big Dave and Josh Vela are out of the action. Phil reckons the Postman got a tweak on Saturday and is 50-50 for tomorrow and he won't be rushing him back. It's take some hope pills, dig in and get what we can, as ever. Going to be a hard season I reckon.

[BWFC_Insane]

I think this season's going to be as much of a lottery as last; moreso now that the injury demon is still haunting the dressing room. We've missed out on quality before with the likes of Holden and Mark Davis suffering absentia, and already Sammi, Big Dave and Josh Vela are out of the action. Phil reckons the Postman got a tweak on Saturday and is 50-50 for tomorrow and he won't be rushing him back. It's take some hope pills, dig in and get what we can, as ever. Going to be a hard season I reckon.

Always was going to be a hard season. Coming into a league with a fraction of the budget we had when we were last here, and finished bottom of it!

Brum is another game where anything other than a loss is a good result. A hard fought 0-0 would be superb. Though no doubt the moaners will be out in force. What we need to start doing is keeping clean sheets in games like this. Concede and chances are we'll do well to take a draw.

If Morais is injured again that is a huge blow as his quality off the bench was giving us a chance if we kept the game tight.

[Bruce Rioja]

Always was going to be a hard season. Coming into a league with a fraction of the budget we had when we were last here, and finished bottom of it!

We have a far superior manager in place now.

[BWFC_Insane]

Always was going to be a hard season. Coming into a league with a fraction of the budget we had when we were last here, and finished bottom of it!

We have a far superior manager in place now.

Indeed. And that is where the hope comes from. However, some people will continually moan about Parky, because he will do his best to set us up to grind results out. That will not be pretty and he will no doubt have several "fans" calling for his head most of this season.

We're the paupers in this division and have to adapt to that. Judging by twitter, many of our fans haven't got their heads round it yet.

[Bruce Rioja]

Indeed. And that is where the hope comes from. However, some people will continually moan about Parky, because he will do his best to set us up to grind results out. That will not be pretty and he will no doubt have several "fans" calling for his head most of this season.

We're the paupers in this division and have to adapt to that. Judging by twitter, many of our fans haven't got their heads round it yet.

Been mulling this over for a while. Of course, we should always strive for better, it's the very nature of the game, but I can't help thinking that there's a ludicrous sense of entitlement amongst many of the younger following who've only ever know one season outside the top two divisions, and for whom last season was something of a novelty. Of course, we won't know, but it would've been interesting to see how many ST's we'd have shifted had we not gone up. Similar on a smaller scale to City had they not beat Gillingham on penalties.

[BWFC_Insane]

Indeed. And that is where the hope comes from. However, some people will continually moan about Parky, because he will do his best to set us up to grind results out. That will not be pretty and he will no doubt have several "fans" calling for his head most of this season.

We're the paupers in this division and have to adapt to that. Judging by twitter, many of our fans haven't got their heads round it yet.

Been mulling this over for a while. Of course, we should always strive for better, it's the very nature of the game, but I can't help thinking that there's a ludicrous sense of entitlement amongst many of the younger following who've only ever know one season outside the top two divisions, and for whom last season was something of a novelty. Of course, we won't know, but it would've been interesting to see how many ST's we'd have shifted had we not gone up. Similar on a smaller scale to City had they not beat Gillingham on penalties.

Its pretty embarrassing at times, but not exclusive to us by any means. Biggest issue I have is their complete inability to read a situation. Like Saturday, we're grinding out a point with a number of injuries and players clearly coming in not fully fit at a difficult ground to go to. And people are moaning. I get that on paper Milwall away isn't the toughest game we'll face, but the situation and context surely is clear to everyone. Will be the same at Birmingham. We'll do well to get anything. Yet people won't get that. If we get Ameobi, Vela and Wheater back its a different proposition again. Even then we'll be having to mainly defend against many teams.

Anyhow, team for Brum..same as Millwall for me (if Morais is fit enough to be a sub). I'd throw Armstrong in for Le Fondre though. I just think Armstrong has more to his game and his pace gives us something extra. ALF will struggle when we aren't creating chances and his all round game (he tries hard) isn't that much of a threat.

[Worthy4England]

Without "expecting" a win, we do have to find a way of trying to turn the 1 pointers into 3. We know a point a game sends you down. In that sense, I'm sure Millwall will see Saturday's result as a missed opportunity for them as much as we might have it down as a "hopeful".

All in all, I wouldn't be unhappy with a point on this one.

[BWFC_Insane]

Without "expecting" a win, we do have to find a way of trying to turn the 1 pointers into 3. We know a point a game sends you down. In that sense, I'm sure Millwall will see Saturday's result as a missed opportunity for them as much as we might have it down as a "hopeful".

All in all, I wouldn't be unhappy with a point on this one.

We do. But equally we have to hang in there. We're in a tough spot injury wise and haven't had the luxury of letting likes of Morais get fit before throwing him in. We've not got many options. So the team more or less picks itself, bar arguably right back and up front.

Sticky situation and a tricky run of fixtures. Get what we can and hope injuries improves the situation somewhat. Who knows we may shift C. Taylor out and bring someone else in.

If we can somehow sneak a win at Brum that would be excellent, given I think we've got little to no chance against Derby on Saturday. However, a point keeps things moving. My view is if you get to the 10 game mark on 8/9 points it isn't great, but you can quickly go above 1ppg and the ratio required to stay up with a few wins. If you get there with 5 or less points you have to go some to just catch back up. And if/when you do, you're often due another dip in form/set of tricky games to knock you under again. We must try and go through the tricky periods as close as possible to 1ppg.

[Worthy4England]

See it's interesting that Derby - who finished 8 points behind Leeds last season and are currently W0, D1, L1 you give us "little to no chance" against, whereas Leeds (W1, D1), you thought were "pretty average".

Regardless of tomorrow night's result, we need to try and take points at home.

[BWFC_Insane]

See it's interesting that Derby - who finished 8 points behind Leeds last season and are currently W0, D1, L1 you give us "little to no chance" against, whereas Leeds (W1, D1), you thought were "pretty average".

Regardless of tomorrow night's result, we need to try and take points at home.

They have Nugent and Vydra on the bench currently - their two backup strikers wouldn't just walk into our team. They could crawl there without knees and still play.

Ok, no chance is clearly over-egging it. But they are a squad full of talent - talent that vastly exceeds our own (being realistic). Of course talent on paper can be overcome sometimes with organisation and effort and sometimes luck. But if that fixture was played 100 times you'd be hard pushed to think Derby wouldn't win it more times than not.

[Worthy4England]

^^ All I'm saying is, they've probably been a bit short of Leeds form - and whilst Leeds MF looks good against ours, better defending should have bagged us a point at least.

We keep it tight, there should be hope. That said, a loss tonight will leave us on 1 from 3 and probably a bit depressed.

[Worthy4England]

^^ Errr Tomorrow night - obvs...

[Prufrock]

Christ we're playing again?!

[bristol_Wanderer3]

I am hoping to be in attendance. Birmingham were poor on Saturday by all accounts, Bristol City fans can't understand how they didn't win the game never mind drawing. And Birmingham have a number of injuries from that game too, including the much lauded Che Adams. Feels like a chance to pick something up here. It's the hope that kills ya....

[TANGODANCER]

Sticky situation and a tricky run of fixtures. Get what we can and hope injuries improves the situation somewhat. Who knows we may shift C. Taylor out and bring someone else in.

Best thing since malt loaf a couple of milliseconds ago, now shift him out?

[Worthy4England]

^^ Chris Taylor (not Andy Taylor)

[TANGODANCER]

^^ Chris Taylor (not Andy Taylor)

Ah, right. Noted. My error.

[TANGODANCER]

One thing bothers me regularly about all the talk of doing this and that on the pitch. I'm not stating anything anybody doesn't already know, but we have to be versatile and capable of playing different ways regularly. There's no magic formula or there'd be more managers at that school than Harry Potter wannabees at Warthogs...oh, sorry, Hogwarts.

Teams get studied and analysed meticulously by opposition managers just as Phil does the same. If we play or start Morais every week it's obvious that the opposition are going to try to neutralise that aspect just like any other ploy we use regularly. Again, one man up front to keep banging balls at needs an alternative occasion ally however effective it might be some times..Why am I stating the blatantly obvious? Because we play different teams every week and folk keep talking like Phil Parky can't figure out things everybody appears to know. It's just that he gets a lot of money a year for being a bit smarter than any of us. If the problem can be solved, he'll solve it. Every week there's somebody telling him what he should do, should have done, where he went wrong etc, etc. Believe me, he doesn't need it. Even if we lose, you couldn't do it any better. In Phil we trust, Harry and St George can look after themselves. COME ON YOU WHITES.....

[boltonboris]

Recent results against Brum suggest a 1-0 defeat and I can't see much reason to disagree