Birmingham City - The Blue's will Prevail

January



It was another solid month in the league as we picked up maximum points dotted around the games against Manchester United in the FA Cup. The first game was a joy to behold for Birmingham fans as we actually took the lead through Dean in the 12th minutes but sadly Ighalo then got them back on level pegging in the 15th minute. Things then looked even better for us when Brandon Williams got sent off after 62 minutes but sadly we just weren't able to get that all important 2nd goal so instead we got the joy of trying to beak them down at Old Trafford. Again though we got off to a better start and this time it was Marc Roberts that put us ahead but sadly two quick goals right before half time from Pereira and Ighalo killed the game and we weren't able to get it back after that.

Game of the Month



the game of the month though had to be the win away to Middlesbrough as again we looked good value going in head at half time 2-1. Straight after the break we looked even better at 3-1. Then things started to get nerve racking as they pulled it back to 3-2 4 minutes later. Luckily Pedersen managed to get the 2 goal leaf back in the 57th minute before Pellegri got a debut goal to put us 5-3 ahead before Middlesbrough got it back to 5-4.

Bellingham's goal though made him the youngest goalscorer in Championship History so he keeps on breaking records at such a young age.

League



Transfers Out



We got rid of the players who we weren't using to allow us to reshape the squad a bit and bring in some other attacking players on permanent deals. Along with these we also cancelled Scott Hogan's loan deal as he was taking up £28,000 a week in wages. Along with this we also agreed to sell Lukas Jutkiewicz to Houston Dynamo for £2,600,000 as he wasn't getting used at all and was on £10,000 a week that could be freed up but he won't be leaving until the middle of February.

Transfers in

Pietro Pellegri



With Hogan and Jutkiewicz leaving then it was important to bring in another striker and I've decided to go with youth again. The one good thing around this deal though is that we have an optional deal of £15 million we can take up at the end of the season to make the mover permanent if we want.

Jack Butland



We also were able to bring Jack Butland back to the club which will hopefully turn out to be a good bit of business and he will be going straight into the starting 11 in place of Lee Camp. We sign him from Stoke for £7.5 million which we also got 20% back thanks to the sell on clause in the deal that sold him to Stoke.

Chiquinho



On deadline day I wanted another attacking midfielder in to try and help with creativity and linking up between midfield and strikers so income Chiquinho from Benfica for £3,800,000 and to show how good a deal that was he's already worth £10,500,000 million so should make a good profit off him.

February

February



Its been a long month as we've squeezed 7 games into February so just as well we got knocked out of the FA Cup so we didn't have anything extra thrown in. The month was all in all a successful one as we only lost one game across the month losing to 10th placed QPR. But the results that really annoyed me was the fact we drew with two teams in the bottom 4 of the League. These are the games we really need to make sure we're winning or we'll never catch Leeds and Fulham. Luckily we are still only 7 points behind 2nd and 8 points behind top spot.

Pellegri has got to claim the player of the month here as he managed a respectable 4 goals across his first month in English football.

League



March

March



A mixed month again where we've dropped points against Hull who are sitting in the bottom half of the table. The big win though came against West Brom since its looking likely that we might end up facing them at some point in the playoffs if thats the route we have to go through. We tore them to pieces and they just couldn't cope with our attacking way of play as we went 4-0 up mostly thanks to Zirkzee who is currently competing with Pellegri for starting up top as he managed to bag two quick goals with West Brom getting one back in the 94th minute of the match.

League



Well its only a matter of time before we Join Leeds and Fulham in guaranteeing a play off position as we are now 15 points ahead of 7th spot.

Youth Intake



Well its safe to say that the youth intake looks promising as we have two stand out players who look like they could make the first team.

Wayne Fish



They did say I would be expecting a decent keeper in the intake but I didn't believe they would be this good though as he will be good enough to become my number 2 keeper next season behind Butland

Marvin Davis



Davis looks like a decent winger who will fit my formation perfectly, we've now just got to find how to get the best from him over the next couple of years to let him grow and mature and enable him to fight for the first team.

Final Run In



Every game here is going to be played like a cup final as I still believe we can catch the top two especially since we can claw back 3 points against Fulham with our very first game of the month.

The Run In



We got off to the perfect start as we managed a massive win on our trip down London as we get a very respectable 2-1 win over Fulham. After this Fulhams lead was cut to 4 so the ball was firmly in their court and we needed to make sure we at least matched Fulhams results over the next few games. Both teams managed good wins in their next 2 wins but then Fulham had a FA Cup Semi final to play against Liverpool when they got pummelled 4-0 and as that happened we played Chalton and managed to win and got the gap closed to a point with them having a game in hand.

Fulham played their game in hand away to West Brom where West Brom came from behind to win 2-1 and mean that the gap was down to 1 point with 2 games to play. We travelled to Preston as Fulham welcomes Sheffield Wednesday and we both had to come from behind to secure 1-1 draws meaning all the pressure for both teams went to the final game of the season.

Fulham travel to Wigan and we welcomed Derby. We watched Fulham fall 1-0 behind meaning that our goal difference propelled us up the table into 2nd place. We then secured the all important first goal to put us 2 points a head of them. Fulham then did the extraordinary and pulled it back so they were 2-1 p which saw us drop back down to third but Wigan came to our rescue with the equaliser which means we win promotion back to the Premier League with doing it in style.

League



There was even more heartbreak for Fulham as they lost out in the Play-off Final to Brentford.

Season review



We had a great season but did fail to meet our expectations in the FA Cup but it was understandable considering we got drawn against Manchester United.

Budgets



We've got a good budget for next season to bring in some reinforcements.

Plans for Next Season

So next season is going to be tough as we will certainly be battling against relegation and thats all that I can ask for. I feel the additions we brought in in January will help us out as they were a good enough quality. We will be looking at the transfer list to see if there is anybody that can be brought in from there as we look for both a mixture of youth and experience. £15 million of our budget will be going on Pellegri though as I feel thats too good a deal to turn down.

Preseason



We made sure that with the all of the new players coming in that we played plenty of friendlies to make sure as many people as possible could get use to the way we want to play this season and we won every single game. We even made sure to play a few similar teams like Bordeaux and Slavia Praha so hopefully this will have set us up well for avoiding a relegation dog fight.

Transfers Out



A lot of players have left the club but this was necessary to bring in the quality of players that we felt would help take the club forward. I feel we did some good business though with some of the fees we received and we cleared a good amount off the wage bill as well which always helps.

Transfers In



We've not gone too mental in the transfer window as we bring in 10 players. Pellegri was agreed at the end of last season and we also brought Zirkzee back in on loan as well which was agreed at the end of the season. We have 3 new wingers in as well to make sure we added plenty of pace to the team and make sure we have the quality to get the ball into the likes of Pellegri. We have also strengthened in the middle of the park with bringing in Will Hughes from a relegated Watford and he should hopefully form an good partnership with Bellingham. We also brought in 3 new defenders. We jumped at the chance to sign Bogle from a relegated Derby as when he was transfer listed we couldn't say no. We also bring in two new young centre back in Vallejo and Pierie to develop and learn from Dean and Roberts. We also brought Angel Gomes back in on loan at the end of last season to cover the AMC role.

Line Up



We've got a young lineup but if we can keep this team together then they could fire us up the league in a year or two

Expectations



I feel we should have enough to stay up this season and hopefully we won't be waiting until the final game of the season to find out whats happening this season as well.

New Contract



Over the summer the board agreed to give me a new contract to keep me at the club for an extra year. I plan on being here for years to come though so its only the start of things to come.

August

August



We start our Premier League campaign against Bournemouth and Jonathan David gets his debut after only arriving at the club a couple of days before and he single handily wins us the game with two fantastic solo goals cutting in off the left wing.

It didn't take long as the Second City Derby takes place in only our second game at this level and Trincao gets us off to an amazing start as he cuts in off the right in the 17th minute which we carry through to half time. In the second half we come out fighting and within 15 minutes Pellegri gets on the end of a long ball and he manages to slot it home from 12 yards out. 10 minutes after that its Pellegri again rising above the rest of the field to head home from a well practised set piece. Villa then get a consolation goal in the 71st minute for the game to finish 3-1 in our favour.

Man City bring us crashing back down as the quality shows through as they tear us to pieces. We made 11 changes for the game against Cheltenham Town including bringing young keeper Wayne Fish in for his debut and the team shows why they deserve to be starting games and not left on the bench as we run out a massive 8-1 winners. We then finish the month off with a well fought draw with Norwich to finish off a great first month for us.

League



September



Jude Bellingham

I started this story talking about our young star and he has continued to develop well over our first season and at 17 he will be a star player for us going forward and will be starting in the middle of the park every week in the league as long as he's fit. We have offered him a new contract as well which will tie him to the club until 2023 if he accepts it.

September



Newcastle were just too strong a start to the month as we are shown how difficult this league can be as they limited us to just 2 shots on target. Southampton have been having a terrible start to the season and have picked up 0 points so far in the season and at home we are able to take our chances as David cuts in off the wing again to get the first before Bogle cuts in from a darting run down the right to get his first goal for the club.

In the Carabao Cup we fully rotate the squad again thanks to the strength and depth we now have at the club and the lads are able to take their chances again as we run out big winners to see us into the next round. Finally we welcome Tottenham who are just a class above as Kane opens the scoring after 10 minutes before Ndombele doubles the lead after 64 minutes. The team actually played really well as the score could have been a lot worse but we at least got a consolation goal thanks to a well worked corner that saw Roberts rise above everybody else to head it home in the 81st minute.

League



October



A pretty horrible month to come I'd say with the games. At least we have the Carabao Cup to hopefully get some confidence back.

October



We get off to a great start where we somehow manage to scrap a win against a strong Leicester team. It looks like their participation in the Europa League this season is hampering their league for which is good for us as Pellegri gets the only goal of the game just on the strike of half time. We then put in a very strong performance against Liverpool as we manage to only lose by a goal which was a long time coming and it was impressive that we did so well defensively until the 87th minute. Against Arsenal we actually managed to take the lead as Bellingham scored a screamer from 25 yards out but that just seemed to piss Arsenal off as they then just upped their game and we couldn't match it.

In the cup we rotated the squad again since we can and it looked like it was going to pay off as we raced to a 2-0 lead but after half time Crystal Palace came out fighting and got two quick goals to get back on level footing. We got extremely lucky though when Sam Woods attempted a back pass to his keeper and over hit it resulting n an own goal to give us a good win.

Big result against Chelsea as David got a great goal in the 8th minute to get us off to a great start and we looked good value taking the lead to half time. We conceded a cheap penalty though as Dean brought Gabriel Barbosa down in the box who then went home to slot it into the bottom corner from the spot.

League



November

November



In the opening game of the month Brentford really made us work for it as they were set up well defensively but a bad take just outside the box was all it took as Jonathan David curled the ball into the top corner from the free kick to take the spoils.

The game against Wolves was a game for the neutrals as Jota got the lead for Wolves after only 7 minutes and at that it looked like it wasn't going to be our day but Trincao was able to pounce on a fumble in the 24th minute to get it back to 1-1. Only 4 minutes later though Wolves took the lead again through Jimenez and we had to wait nearly 20 minutes before the next goal as Jimenez pounced on a bad pass back to put Wolves 3-1 ahead. We had started to give up before Pellegri scored just a minute later though to ensure we went in at the break only 1 behind. We made a couple of changes at half time and in the 66th minute it paid off as David got the equaliser, the game was finally going our way. After shouting a bunch of instructions from the touchline a long ball was played up from defence which Pellegri was able to control and slot it home with 10 minutes to go to get us the 3 points.

The Man Utd game was actually hard to take as Pellegri got the opening goal not long into the 2nd half but McTominay got the equaliser 20 minutes later before James got the winner with the final kick of the ball in the 92nd minute.

League



December