Preview Actually, this is going to be more of a stock-take than a preview, but bear with me. This preview also contains a confession and an apology. The atmosphere at the club, in contrast to the feelings of the last few months of last season, is worsening by the day. Ticket prices, the removal of long-term employees, a perceived lack of spending and some interminable 'spin' from the club are just some of the elements that have built up and resulted in fans becoming increasingly infuriated with the way the club is being run. I fully understand all of that. Perhaps I have been slightly slow to react to some of it. I'm not a fan of knee-jerk reactions to anything, so I bit my tongue about the original price increases, I was glad we didn't spunk £2m on the likes of Earnshaw, and I quite like the new crest. But more recent events have started to leave a nasty taste in the mouth. This impasse that has now opened up between the owners and the fans, the club and the fans, the club and the local press, cannot be a good thing. And it's not just us fans who are feeling the brunt of it. It's also the players. So let's quickly take stock of our season so far: We've played 12 games. We've won seven, scoring four on two occasions and knocking one of the best sides in the country out of the Cup on their own patch. We've drawn two, one was a good draw, the other disappointing. And we've lost three - a disaster at Sheffield, unfortunate at Cov and a poor performance v Derby. Now while things have been far from perfect, that is a pretty fine start to the season, especially by our ropey standards. We've only been outclassed once in that time. We're 8th in the table, on equal points with the 6th placed team and three points off third place Reading, who just smashed runaway leaders Wolves 3-0 at Molineux. Anyone with any sense at all would look at that and think: "Not too bad at all. Decent base to build on." Yet for two successive games the players have received pretty throaty booing from a fair proportion of the crowd. Last Saturday Martin Rowlands was so shocked at the booing that he engaged in an extremely heated row with a fan in the Ellerslie Road stand. He explained his actions in the programme and to be honest I had to agree with him. Maybe it's just old age, but I seem to remember that teams only ever used to be booed off after a series of poor games or if they were comprehensively whipped by five or six goals. Or, occasionally, if it was patently obvious that the team were not trying and did not care. None of those things apply to the team this season. Against Derby and Blackpool the players worked hard throughout the game. You may not like Parejo's style or body language, but the fact was he was actually making more of an effort to be available to receive the ball than anyone else in our team. We also seem to forget that Parejo and Ledesma are both Under 21 with next to no experience either of first team action or of English football. I think we could be a little more patient with them than we have been so far. You may not agree with Dowie's formation. But you'd struggle to find a coach more committed than Dowie. All of which makes the fans' reaction to the players even more strange. Now to the confession. As we reached HT against Blackpool on Tuesday I wasn't too disappointed. Blackpool scored a wonder goal. OK, Stewart's header was bad, we could have closed him down quicker, but it was a stupendous goal. They had another shot that went well wide and we had a shaky Cerny moment just before the break. That was it. Apart from that we had more possession, made one or two excellent chances (Rowlands and Blackstock both should have scored easily) and, overall, I was confident that we would at the very least equalise once we were shooting towards the Loft. There was no lack of effort, although the passing was poor at times and it had been a frustrating game. Still, it could easily - *easily* - been 1-0 to us rather than the other way around. I'm not saying we were great, we weren't, but, let's face it, we've seen a lot worse even in the last 10 months. A year ago we'd have been saying 'unlucky' and encouraging the team to go for it 2nd half. So I was absolutely shocked when sections of the crowd loudly booed the team off as the HT whistle went. A guy to my left, just beyond my Dad, stood up and booed vociferously. I am ashamed to admit that before I knew what I was doing I reached around my Dad and pushed him on his shoulder, and asked what on earth he thought he was doing. He looked shocked, explaining that they were useless, or words to that effect. I asked him what good booing did, I asked him why he bothered coming if he was just going to boo. What I could not understand was the act of booing halfway through a match. OK, if you sit through half of a Hollywood movie and it's awful, you can have a good idea that the rest will be awful too. But not a sporting event. Did Escape to Victory teach us nothing at all? At this point, his companion weighed in, and he wasn't quite as quiet as his friend. The argument turned a little ugly, to the extent where other people started voicing their opinions and the incident was loud enough and ugly enough to be referred to in Clive Whittingham's match report over at Club Fanzine. I'm not proud of myself. I shouldn't have pushed the guy in the shoulder. I'll be apologising with a gift at the next home game I can attend (Birmingham, as it happens) and hopefully this nastiness will be put behind us. I'm not saying I haven't argued with fans in the past when I've felt they've treated players harshly. I have. But this was something new and on Wednesday morning I knew I had acted badly, even if I still believe I was right to challenge someone for booing, and I will do it again in the future. It is not the players' fault that prices and expectations are high, or that a few grand was spent on chandaliers, or that the Platinum section isn't full, or that round the pole doesn't happen (to be honest I prefer the kids taking pot shots anyway), or that the members bar has gone. I think we have a group of pretty honest players at the moment as well as an honest manager and decent coaches. So why the hell do we take our frustrations out on them? Who does it help? And just a few days after Amit Bhatia praised the fans for superb support at Villa, many, and I suspect it wasn't the ones who went to Villa, then proved they weren't so great by booing a team that is 1-0 down at half-time. Senseless. At this time we need to be supporting the players and encouraging them. Bad atmospheres and booing does not produce a winning team. Rowlands usually claps the fans after a game, the fact that he only made a cursory effort by his standards on Tuesday is a sign that the bond between fan and player is fading. We cannot allow decisions by the likes of Ali Russell to allow that to happen. And so to Birmingham. Who knows what will happen. We couldn't beat Derby or Blackpool at home. Had we done so we'd now be third and flying. But just because we only got one point there, doesn't mean we can't upset the Blues. We all worry about form, but only 9 days ago we beat Villa. Blues have lost just one league game all season, to Blackpool at home, so at least we did better on that score. And, of course, Brum have a plethora of attacking players we could only dream about: Phillips, Jerome, Larsson, McFadden, Owusu-Abeyie... Phillips only has half as many goals as Dexter this season, an interesting stat, but he's been almost exclusively a sub. He's bound to score tomorrow. Match Prediction Of course, we're talking about QPR here, so after two sub-par performances you know that we're likely to see us win 2-0 and get everyone excited again. It's on Sky, which used to be the kiss of death, but recently we put that to bed. We've scored 7 in our last two Sky outings, including that demolition of Stoke last season. We also beat Cardiff live on Sky at their place when they were flying high about two years ago, and Charlton at the Valley about a year ago when they were well-placed, so precedent is there. Let's be realistic, though. The best we can hope for is a draw and I suspect we won't get even that. Birmingham 3 QPR 0. Team Prediction Almost any tricksy foreign player gets called 'lightweight' once he has a couple of dodgy games. That fate has befallen Parejo and Ledesma, who are technically ahead of most of the squad but haven't quite yet harnessed that talent into consistent performances yet. I think both will be rested tomorrow as Dowie goes with strength over guile (although with Cook and Buzsaky there's still plenty of guile available). I don't blame him. Who knows what's up with Connolly, but I hope he's back. Cerny Ramage Hall Stewart Delaney Mahon Leigertwood Buzsaky Rowlands Cook Blackstock Bet on This Taylor-Fletcher's wonder goal meant all my predictions went tits up on Tuesday, meaning I'm now down to a still-in-the-black £21. For tomorrow I'll take Sebastian Larsson at 12-1 for them (not sure he'll start, so if he doesn't I'll take McFadden at fives). I'll also take Quincy O-A at 8-1 as well. Finally, I'll take 3-1 to Blues at 14-1. Preview Haiku That Birtles on Sky Incredibly annoying Shut him up, Rangers |