Marked for Benjamin Murphy
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Market1 Jun 2043
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 Jun 2043
George Young: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Birmingham have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Boardroom1 Jun 2043
He will play here until the summer and then walk out of the door for free, having already signed elsewhere. Supporters will manage the first part of that sentence; it is the second they will struggle with.
Market1 Jun 2043
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Birmingham they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad1 Jun 2043
Jim Thwaites has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Birmingham will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
Market1 Jun 2043
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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad15 Sep 2042
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 64 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match13 Sep 2042
Tyler Dibling had done his part in building a 2-goal cushion. What happened after that was collective, and Crystal Palace were allowed back into a match that had been finished with.
Player ratings15 Sep 2042
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.05, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Squad15 Sep 2042
Tyler Dibling 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.
Market15 Sep 2042
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Alexander Jensen will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Birmingham the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match13 Sep 2042
Crystal Palace left with the points after a 3‑4 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Squad15 Sep 2042
The manager makes an example of Jay Stansfield
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad15 Sep 2042
Words at Birmingham training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sergio Montes 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.
Player ratings15 Sep 2042
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad1 Sep 2042
A fracture rules Jonathan Clark out for 79 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Birmingham will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad1 Sep 2042
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Market1 Sep 2042
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad1 Sep 2042
Ayden Heaven has been here 15 seasons
480 appearances across 15 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad1 Sep 2042
Jay Stansfield 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.
Match30 Aug 2042
Ask anyone on the way out what separated the sides and you will get one name: Sergio Montes. 2‑1 against Leeds United, and the applause at the whistle was mostly his.
Player ratings1 Sep 2042
Successful dribbles: 17. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Player ratings1 Sep 2042
Some games turn on a moment; this one turned on a man. 7.86 on the card, and the Birmingham support went home talking about one name.
Market1 Sep 2042
The Ayden Heaven story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Ayden Heaven signs something — a contract at Birmingham or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad16 Jun 2042
A knee injury of the worst kind for Timothy Harris
59 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.
Squad16 Jun 2042
The medical room confirms 15 days on the sidelines for Jay Stansfield, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Squad16 Jun 2042
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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match1 Feb 2042
3‑0, and the margin flattered nobody — it could have carried another goal or two without complaint. Afternoons like this are why people keep coming.
Player ratings3 Feb 2042
Two goals and a mark of 8.41 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Squad3 Feb 2042
43 appearances across 16 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Squad3 Feb 2042
A one-man rearguard from Liam Pearson
There were 6 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad3 Feb 2042
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Ayden Heaven and Birmingham agree another 2 years.
Market3 Feb 2042
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Birmingham is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad3 Feb 2042
Words at Birmingham training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Jay Stansfield 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.
Market3 Feb 2042
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.
Player ratings3 Feb 2042
Successful dribbles: 13. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.