Spyin' Kop: Liverpool v Birmingham City - 22nd September 2007

Posted by Welshred on September 21, 2007, 07:57:57 pm

Liverpool return home to Anfield after two credible draws at Pompey in the league and Porto in the European Cup, despite two poor performances. They say being able to get points when not performing is the sign of a ti…ok I won’t say it, don’t want to upset the gods now do we? This weekend’s opponents at fortress Anfield are newly promotoed Birmingham City, whom the Reds haven’t beaten in the league for quite some time, the last result in the league being a 1-1 draw at Anfield with Gerrard scoring for us and Alonso for them. The season before they did the double over us…the less said about that the better, although we did go on to become European Champions that year. It’s not all doom and gloom though, the last time we played Birmingham was in the FA Cup in March 2006, I’m sure most of us know the score, for those who don’t it was 7-0, niiiiiiiiiiiice!



Team News

Liverpool are without defender Daniel Agger and midfielder Xabi Alonso who both have metatarsal injuries. On the plus side John Arne Riise is back in the squad and Fabio Aurelio is available after proving his fitness from an Achilles problem.
 
Birmingham skipper Damien Johnson will not be risked despite coming through a reserve game after a hamstring injury. That means the Blues are set to name an unchanged team, with Olivier Kapo playing in the hole off the strikers.

Club History

Birmingham City’s Official Website wouldn’t let me copy and paste the relevant information, so to save me a few years typing it out here’s the link - http://www.blues.premiumtv.co.uk/page/HistoryDetail/0,,10412,00.html

Club Records

The same as above really -
http://www.blues.premiumtv.co.uk/page/Records/0,,10412,00.html

So to the questions,  I went to Birmingham City Independent Fans forum http://smallheathalliance.com/ to guage the views of the Blue’s fans. After numerous replies I chose the answers of the users Scoobers, Le Phántom Bookié and Tarquin Kettle. Enjoy!

It's almost obligatory now to ask as the first question, how's your season gone so far?

Tarquin Kettle - So So

Scoobers - As expected, The good, The Bad and The Ugly. The Good - having a go at Chelsea, Derby and beating Bolton, The Bad - Middlesborough, The Ugly - our style of football.

Le Phántom Bookié - I don't like being positive but, it's gone pretty well, we should have got something at Chelsea. Sunderland at home we were screwed out of 3 pts in the last minute, and against West Ham we should have had a stone wall penalty, so the only game weve been outclassed is boro away, 1 game being outclassed from the first 7 isnt bad for a promoted club, so it shows we can live with the big boys and 7 pts on the board isnt that bad.

After spending a season in the doldrums of the Championship, how are you enjoying your season back in the Premier League?

Tarquin Kettle - Same as last time, overpriced, boring and predictable

Scoobers - I'm not, more fun in the more affordable Championship.

Le Phántom Bookié - You can't enjoy it, which is a pain. You can only enjoy it when you're safe from relegation, but every game this season is gonna be a nail biter, that's not fun, that's just stress.

What are you looking forward to the most?

Tarquin Kettle - Hopefully the odd upset here and there, even more hopefully to stick one up our nearest neighbours

Scoobers - Steve Bruce leaving, a lot of the club is stale now

Le Phántom Bookié - Raul coming in January, ditching all the championship cloggers and bringing some lazy foreign players in who ooze class, like dugarry 5 years ago

What are your expectations for the season?

Tarquin Kettle - A long hard dogfight

Scoobers - Anything above relegation is as good as a European place for other teams.

Le Phántom Bookié - I hope we'll stay up, but I expect, we, probably won't

You have to say 'who's worse than us?' And you can only look at Derby and Sunderland (Yes I said Sunderland, don't believe the roy keane hype, theyve spent about 30 million quid and don't have one decent outfield player), so it's gonna be 1 more from us, bolton, boro, wigan, reading and fulham, bolton look poor, if they lose diouf and anelka in the jan transfer window, i think they're doomed, so actually ive changed my mind, yeh we'll stay up

Steve Bruce, he's got a big fat head hasn't he?

Tarquin Kettle – Yup

Scoobers - Ahhh, but you had Pinnociho

Le Phántom Bookié - I'd like to suffocate that big head with a pillow, ok it might take 5 pillows

Who do you think are your most important players in the squad?

Tarquin Kettle - All of the back four, and to hope that the flair players like Kapo and De Ridder show some form and consistency

Scoobers - Schmitz, Muamba and Kapo

Le Phántom Bookié - Well definitely the out and out goalsco....oh wait we dont have one, ok then it's the creative mid.....oh wait, we don't have one, well it's gotta be the pacey winge.....oh wait we don't have any. I dunno? Ridgewell?

And your worst?

Tarquin Kettle - Out of those likely to be picked, on current form, sadly McSheffrey, but I'm not giving up on him

Scoobers - Nafti in the first team squad

Le Phántom Bookié - Damien 'bruces love child' johnson. Imagine having a blind player in your squad who has anger issues and likes to get sent off, but because he's a nice guy off the pitch the manager feels compelled to play him every week to the detriment of the side, and you'll understand what we're going through with the damien johnson/steve bruce farce

Do you have any previous memories of a meeting between our two sides? It could be anything from the match, to a particular chant, or simply a funny moment in the game. (Although I seem to recall a 7-0 scoreline somewhere down the line a few years back )

Tarquin Kettle - Several. We have had a decent record against you in recent years (aprt from the 7), the 2-2 in 2001 was pretty funny

Scoobers - The fantastic Blues support despite losing by a mere seven.

Le Phántom Bookié - Yeh, that game, with all the goals, how could we forget? Birmingham 9-1 Liverpool in the 50s.

No, in reality, weve had some good matces between us in recent years, remember when we had barry fry as a manager, and we took you to pens at anfield, I think we missed every single one, but ricky otto scored a screamer earlier on in that game, which is absolutely hilarious


What sort of line-up and formation should we expect on Saturday?

Tarquin Kettle - 4-1-1

Scoobers - 4-5-1, and that's when we're attacking ...

Le Phántom Bookié - 4-4-2 or 4-5-1, bruce doesnt know anything else, also expect us to play people out of position, we'll have kelly the right back at left back, kapo the central midfielder on the wing, damien johnson the right winger in centre midfield, its all part of the fun of having a fat headed muppet in charge

Do you have any favourite or weird chants we should be aware of?

Tarquin Kettle - Listen out for one about O Connor and ladies of ill repute

Scoobers - Shhhooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooot.

Le Phántom Bookié - We used to be such a witty bunch of fans with great songs, but that seems to have ended, we'll probably spend all game signing 'sign on sign on' and showering your fans with bottles, piss and coins, NICE

Where do you expect our respective teams will finish in the league this season?

Tarquin Kettle - 16th and 2nd respectively. Having said that if you keep Gerrard and Torres fit you might scale up to 14th

Scoobers - Top Three and Bottom Three.

Le Phántom Bookié - Well liverpool are a cup team aren't they? So they'll probably go on another flukey run in europe, and finish 3rd in the prem, we'll stay up because ive decided Bolton are considerably more crap than us

Which Liverpool player(s) do you fear the most?

Tarquin Kettle - I'm a massive fan of Gerrard, so I fear him twice a season, and admire for the rest of it

Scoobers - Gerrard, Torres, Crouch

Le Phántom Bookié - Voronin looks like tripple H the wrestler, and Crouch isnt human, so probably them two.

Finally, the score... care to have a stab at what the outcome will be?

Tarquin Kettle - 3-0 to Scousers

Scoobers - 4-0.

Le Phántom Bookié - Pft who knows, if everythings normal, you'll beat us 3-0, but we seem to do well at Anfield, remember Darren Anderton the other year? So who knows?

Thanks again to everyone at http://smallheathalliance.com/ for answering our questions.

© Welshred 2007

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