3 games without scoring. Strikers stop looking up, midfielders take the extra touch, and every shot that clears the bar is followed by a groan that has been building since the last goal.
Squad8 Dec 2031
Words at Birmingham training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Paik Seung-Ho is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
0‑1 to Hull City, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.
The dugout8 Dec 2031
The manager’s verdict
“That is on me. I pick the team and I picked wrong.” Managers say that when they mean it and when they need to be seen to, and after 0‑1 Efthymios Fortounis left the room before anybody could ask which.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Max Bird was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
A performance of 8.05 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad10 Nov 2031
Renzo Uriburu falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Birmingham are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Birmingham, and it is not being withdrawn.
Demarai Gray and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad13 Oct 2031
Paik Seung-Ho falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Demetri Mitchell and Birmingham agree another 1 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Successful dribbles: 16. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Efthymios Fortounis after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Birmingham know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
A 3‑1 win over Newport County, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings22 Sep 2031
A brace, and Tomoki Iwata takes the afternoon — 8.15
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Tomoki Iwata provided it, and the 8.15 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Max Bird and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad22 Sep 2031
Paik Seung-Ho falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.83 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Birmingham, and it is not being withdrawn.
Demarai Gray and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Peterborough United have kept their man, and Birmingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Michael Campbell is 22, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Everything agreed with Swindon Town, everything agreed with the player; a doctor is the only person left to persuade. The photograph is a day or two away.
Senior shirt numbers handed to boys the coaches have known since they were twelve. Most will not make it and all of them have already done the hard part.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Anthony King has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
The academy exists for exactly this morning. Alexander Allen has come through every age group the club runs and has now been handed a senior number, and the people who coached him at twelve will be the proudest in the building.
25 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Birmingham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Birmingham people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Birmingham had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Peterborough United, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Birmingham this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Everyone has stopped pretending: Wigan Athletic will make the call about Denzil Uchenna this week. Birmingham have a number in mind, and the number is not shy.
$5.2M settles it between the clubs for Brian Madjo
Peterborough United have accepted the money. What Birmingham do not yet have is the man, and between here and the photograph is a conversation about wages that both sides are dreading.
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Birmingham people have started saying his name in the past tense.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Birmingham, and it is not being withdrawn.
Demarai Gray and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Michael Golding was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Wrexham have kept their man, and Birmingham go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Squad14 Jul 2031
Caleb Sanders has improved at 24, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
15 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
28 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Birmingham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Max Bird was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad16 Dec 2030
Paik Seung-Ho falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Successful dribbles: 17. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Efthymios Fortounis after the 0‑0 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
The words a physio says slowly. 45 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Caleb Sanders is 23, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad16 Sep 2030
Paik Seung-Ho falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“A point is a point and I will take it, but we should have had all three.” Efthymios Fortounis after the 1‑1 draw, and the sentence every manager in the country said at some stage this weekend.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
111 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Birmingham lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“I know what people will say. I know what I want, and it is here.” Sint-Truiden had the fee agreed and the shirt ready; they did not have the player, and now they will not.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Dan Sweeney will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Birmingham the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Birmingham had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Feyenoord, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Harry Phillips has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Demarai Gray was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Coventry City have been asked whether they would lend him. Loans are agreed quickly or not at all, and this one will be one or the other by the weekend.
In brief
Transfer targetsA loan move for Sean Neave is in the works