Sometimes,
life can deal you a cruel hand, and in football, the teams in the
West Midlands have been dealt some of the worst possible ones.
Of the six league teams in the region – Aston Villa, Birmingham
City, Coventry City, Walsall, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton
Wanderers – three teams have been relegated, one has narrowly
avoided it, and the other two finished mid-table.
In terms of success, forget about it. The season has been a stinker
for most of the teams around here and it will definitely go down as
one to be forgotten.
The most prominent fall from grace has been that of Birmingham City
who slipped out of the Premiership following a pitiful season. Only
two years ago at the end of the 03/04 campaign, Blues achieved their
best finish in the top-flight in nigh on 30 years when they ended the
season in 10th place.
Fast forward to April 2006, and a weak Blues team were relegated from
the top flight without putting up much of a fight at all. The question
is what went wrong in two years? The blame would need to go to two
areas, poor signings and a poor back-room set up.
The writing was on the wall way back at the end of the 03/04 season
when Blues won one of their last 11 games of the season. The acrimonious
departure of coach Mark Bowen that summer and his subsequent replacement
of Eric Black has quite clearly showed that it didn’t work.
Since then, Blues started to look very one-dimensional and seemed to
lack creativity. Steve Bruce has blamed a massive injury list for hindering
Blues chances this season, which is fair enough. But surely Bruce must
look at the situation with his physios and other members of the medical
team as to why there were so many injured this season.
Rushing players back didn’t help, which caused a strain on an
already weak squad. So signings were needed and Bruce tried – as
he has done since Blues were in the Premiership – but failed
to deliver the players that were needed.
Although the players he got in during the transfer window in the first
season in the Premier League worked, this time round it didn’t.
Martin Latka was useless, Chris Sutton showed some form, but he is
no longer a Premiership player, and DJ Campbell was only given brief
run-outs.
The only consolation is that Campbell will be around to be a key player
in the Blues’ charge back to the top-flight, while many of Blues’ youngsters
have came in and shown they can do a job and will be a backbone to
the side for next year.
Players such as Heskey, Melchiot, Butt, Jarosik and Izzet will probably
not be around next season as the board will want to cut the wage bill
as it gets used to life in the Championship, while question makes will
remain over the future of Forssell, Dunn and Jermaine Pennant.
Captain Kenny Cunningham could still have one more season left in him
in the Championship – however, when he was subbed against Newcastle
United on the last home game of the season, most fans knew it could
be the last time he’ll play at St. Andrews in a Blues shirt.
The only player who can come with some credit from the season is Damien
Johnson, who has played his heart out and at least gave it a go while
the others around him folded like an accordion. Should Cunningham not
be around next season, he would be the ideal choice as captain.
Most Blues fans knew relegation was coming, but when it happened, it
was a bitter pill to swallow.
West Bromwich Albion also fell out of the top-flight on the same day,
and went with even more of a whimper than Blues.
Having managed to avoid relegation last year in dramatic fashion, it
looked like this year the players were hoping that history would repeat
itself – but it didn’t and the Albion lacked the kind of
clout and guile needed to get out of the relegation mire.
Most of the problems for Albion was mainly because they only managed
to win twice in 2006 before they were relegated without even kicking
a ball at the end of April.
Poor finishing, slack defending, occasional pretty football, shocking
refereeing decisions and not enough urgency has been the reason behind
Albion’s demise.
The curious decision by Bryan Robson to sell Rob Earnshaw and Geoff
Horsfield must be questioned as both players would surely have been
able to offer the creativity and commitment needed to get out of trouble
the Albion were in most of the season.
Big name players such as Kanu, Junichi Inamoto, Kevin Campbell and
Chris Kirkland all failed to deliver the good and you would imagine
most of them will depart over the summer.
Albion managed to stay up last year but failed to build their squad
up suitably with quality, in fact, they depleted it by selling key
players. They return to the Championship as a team in disarray. They
have shown that they know how to get promotion to the Premiership on
the first occasion after relegation, but whether they will be able
to do it again remains to be seen.
Bryan Robson has gone from villain to hero and now back to villain
over the course of the last 18 months, and his future at the Hawthorns,
along with Steve Bruce at St Andrews is sure to come under scrutiny
over the summer.
Another manager in Birmingham who will be checking the post everyday
for his P45 is David O’Leary.
To put it bluntly, Aston Villa are very lucky that the teams below
them are as bad as they were, otherwise, they would have been well
amongst the relegation dogfight.
This season has seen Villa slump to their worst ever finish in the
Premiership under the management of O’Leary, and if it hadn’t
been for a couple of derby wins against Blues and Albion, then the
whole outlook of the league table could’ve been different.
It would be a major surprise if O’Leary continues to manage Aston
Villa next season after his horror show this year. Under-performing
players and signings who have failed to make the mark has been the
downfall for Villa.
Kevin Phillips, Milan Baros, Erik Bakke and James Milner have all flattered
to deceive and have not performed to the best that they can. Gareth
Barry handed in a transfer request and Lee Hendrie wants out of Villa
Park too.
Added to that Juan Pablo Angel stating recently that he could be leaving
Villa, it all adds up to one big headache for Chairman Doug Ellis,
although he is still the target for the fan’s venom, but probably
not as much as O’Leary.
Calling your own fans ‘sugarbags’ is probably not the best
way to endear yourself to the Villa Park faithful and this comment
added to the poor form showed over the course of the 05/06 season,
could well mean that ‘Deadly’ Doug may well claim another
managerial victim.
Out of the Premiership, both Wolves and Coventry City have failed to
set the world alight in the Championship and failed to even get into
the play-offs this season. Wolves under Glenn Hoddle fell short of
the play-offs, finishing in seventh place, while the Mickey Adam’s
Sky Blues finished a place below them in eighth spot.
Both sides will now be looking forward to taking on both Blues and
Albion next year in what will prove to be a tough season for all Midlands
clubs who will play in the Championship.
Further down the leagues, Walsall dropped into League Two after another
horrible season that saw the sacking of Paul Merson and then his replacement,
Kevin Broadhurst, with former Ireland midfielder Mark Kinsella, taking
over the reigns until the end of the season.
Much like Blues and Albion, the writing had been on the wall for the
Saddlers after a string of poor performances throughout the season.
A 3-0 defeat to Huddersfield sent them to League Two for the first
time since 1995, and who is to know whether the team can be turned
around so they don’t drop out of the football league altogether.
There are very few positives, if any, that can be drawn from football
in the West Midlands at the moment. Hopefully, the season will not
be as bad for all the teams involved next season – but what needs
to be done is that most of the teams need to remember a sense of pride
when they play for their club.
It’s a privileged and well paid profession being a footballer
and the vast majority would do anything to have a chance of being one.
Those who do play are the lucky ones and they need to remember this
when they pull on their respective club shirt every week.
One thing for sure is that the fans will return next season, as they
always do, full of hope and expectation that this year could be their
year, until then, it’s a long time until next season starts.
See you in August.
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