SHA Small Heath Alliance

Hagley Blue

We’d likely have a completely new team. It will take time for them to gel. Playoffs would be a success.

Absolutely not.

People talk about clubs not having a winning mentality to come back up. Show me a team that gets relegated with a winning mentality.

It's stupid.

Yeah agreed. Leicester didn't have a winning mentality after being relegated last year but that's changed pretty quickly now that they have stronger players than the rest of the league.

If we go down, we'll be spending more money on a individual players than 90% of the league will spend in total. It's not arrogance to say that if we go down, with the resources available to us next year, we absolutely effing should expect to get promoted at the first time of asking.

We shouldn't be arrogant about it though - we wouldn't deserve to get promoted because we're "the mighty Birmingham City FC" or because the other teams are "shit." It'll be because we have better players, a better manager and because they've all worked their bollocks off to perform consistently well.

Yeah, the confidence would not be based on some baseless notion that we are Blues so we should go back up, it would be based on having a bigger budget than half of the league combined, 150% the budget of our nearest rival, having the best players and having (hopefully) the best manager in Mowbray.

If I hear another Portsmouth or Charlton comparison again I might lose my mind, they didn't have any of the above, they had average players and an average budget which is why they were average.

Yeah it’s madness.

People moan about the likes of Leicester, villa etc having far more resources in the Championship than we have, that would be us in League One.

If the worst did happen then anything but going straight back up would be a massive failure.

Herefordshire Cider Boozer

Jesus wept. Blues having to play this pile of dung. Pompey and Derby go up we'll be promoted by Xmas.

I'm not so sure.

Every one of those 'pile of dung' teams will come to St Andrews (and maybe even when we play at their place) and put 11 men behind the ball.
Ask yourself how successful we are when teams just sit back? How many games that we should've won on paper but have ended up 0-0 or a 0-1 defeat?
We can't break teams that play like that down. We don't have the creativity in midfield to do it. We can get the ball down the wings, but that's about it as we then run out of ideas and turn around and pass it backwards.
We need teams to attack us, so we can then counter and have space behind them. That's why we know that if we go 1-0 down that the game is pretty much lost as all the opposition needs to do is defend competently because we can't get through them.

Yes, we'll pretty much a brand new squad of players, but nobody on here know who they will be and what quality of players we can attract in League 1.

I'm putting all of my eggs in the 'staying up' basket. Huddersfield HAVE to win on Saturday, so they have to attack us. As long as GR doesn't set us up to simply not lose, then I think we'll get all three points. Then a draw at home to Norwich & we'll be safe. We'll then attract a much better quality of player in the summer and, hopefully, be able to break teams down next season.

If it's anything like Sunday league our better players will be happy to play a division lower because they'll win every week.

Haha. My 5-a-side team I play in with some lads from work didn't turn up to a game a couple of seasons back because we didn't want to get promoted. The top league is full of 20 year olds from callcentres who take things way too seriously whilst the 2nd league is full of tradespeople who want to have a kickabout and a pint after.

BlueNose82

Herefordshire Cider Boozer

Jesus wept. Blues having to play this pile of dung. Pompey and Derby go up we'll be promoted by Xmas.

I'm not so sure.

Every one of those 'pile of dung' teams will come to St Andrews (and maybe even when we play at their place) and put 11 men behind the ball.
Ask yourself how successful we are when teams just sit back? How many games that we should've won on paper but have ended up 0-0 or a 0-1 defeat?
We can't break teams that play like that down. We don't have the creativity in midfield to do it. We can get the ball down the wings, but that's about it as we then run out of ideas and turn around and pass it backwards.
We need teams to attack us, so we can then counter and have space behind them. That's why we know that if we go 1-0 down that the game is pretty much lost as all the opposition needs to do is defend competently because we can't get through them.

Yes, we'll pretty much a brand new squad of players, but nobody on here know who they will be and what quality of players we can attract in League 1.

I'm putting all of my eggs in the 'staying up' basket. Huddersfield HAVE to win on Saturday, so they have to attack us. As long as GR doesn't set us up to simply not lose, then I think we'll get all three points. Then a draw at home to Norwich & we'll be safe. We'll then attract a much better quality of player in the summer and, hopefully, be able to break teams down next season.

With our current squad and Rowett or a Rowett type manager I think it would be an issue.

With Mowbray or a Mowbray style manager I'm much more relaxed about it - under him we signed Paik, Dozzell and Pritchard to let us control those sortof games and break teams down. As long as we remain committed to that being our style of play then we should be okay - we're going to be looking to pen teams in and pick them apart.

I'm putting all of my eggs in the 'staying up' basket. Huddersfield HAVE to win on Saturday, so they have to attack us.

Their best chance of winning is to make it tight, let us have the ball, and grind it out via set pieces and being direct

That's exactly how I expect them to play, it'll be similar to the Rotherham game, tight and edgy.

Buddy Mercer

Also, teams such as Wrexham, Stockport, Bolton maybe if they don't go up this season, have a winning mentality after gaining promotions recently, whilst Blues haven't had that for over a decade

Ipswich had been complete shit for a decade. New owners, one good transfer window, and they blew the league apart.

And 4 seasons in League 1

Then new owners, one window, pissed promotion

The whole 'winning mentality' thing is folly imo, if you've got better players and a manager than everyone else they'll you soon develop a 'winning mentality' as you'll be winning every week

It didn't quite work out like that though.

A majority of their players were home grown / there when Paul Cook was manager.

The magic started when rookie manager McKenna was brought in from Man U's coaching staff to replace Cook in Dec 2021. Their promotion only happened in the following 22/23 season, 3 windows later, when they finished 2nd behind Plymouth.

Herefordshire Cider Boozer

Jesus wept. Blues having to play this pile of dung. Pompey and Derby go up we'll be promoted by Xmas.

That is an absolutely dreadful looking league, but it'll by no means be comfortable.

Will be difficult for whoever the manager is too as promotion will be an expectation from fans and the board.

Well it depends if you have a manager who also agrees that promotion should be the expectation and instructs his team accordingly or whether you have one who would just be happy with a 0-0 away win against Oxford...

If Mowbray comes back, I'd be extremely confident that we'd get promoted but the last match against Rotherham was a preview of how things would go in League 1 if we don't try to dominate teams.

Buddy Mercer

Buddy Mercer

Also, teams such as Wrexham, Stockport, Bolton maybe if they don't go up this season, have a winning mentality after gaining promotions recently, whilst Blues haven't had that for over a decade

Ipswich had been complete shit for a decade. New owners, one good transfer window, and they blew the league apart.

And 4 seasons in League 1

Then new owners, one window, pissed promotion

The whole 'winning mentality' thing is folly imo, if you've got better players and a manager than everyone else they'll you soon develop a 'winning mentality' as you'll be winning every week

It didn't quite work out like that though.

A majority of their players were home grown / there when Paul Cook was manager.

The magic started when rookie manager McKenna was brought in from Man U's coaching staff to replace Cook in Dec 2021. Their promotion only happened in the following 22/23 season, 3 windows later, when they finished 2nd behind Plymouth.

The point is people use Ipswich as an example to suggest that we wont get promoted, it's a bad example because as soon as they got new owners and a good manager they smashed it

McKenna arrived in Dec 2021 and didn't sign anyone in Jan 22, he signed 5 or 6 in summer 2022 who are still key players now, and 3 or 4 more in Jan 2023, they got 98 points at the first time of asking. So it took 1 season (two windows in the same season) to eradicate all of their previous issues and create a 'winning mentality', nearly getting 100 points

And that's with a wage budget of 17M, ours wont be far off double

Saying Ipswich stuggled for years is meaningless when the new onwership and a good manager got them up straight away as soon as he signed some players.

We can say that there's been loads of Charlton's, and loads of Portsmouths, and loads of Wigan's, but there's never been a Birmingham, there's never been a team in League One with revenues of £40M or a wage budget 400% higher than the league average

I get your point, but it's Blues we're talking about

Experience tells me it won't be easy as some think if we do go down (and we're not there yet thankfully)

It would rely on having a good manager, Mowbray hopefully, who is around for a whole season - we've had six in the last year!