A Birmingham story - I'm bringing sexy back.....

[RichieW]

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Alex Mcleish accepts vacant Scotland position!!!

Birmingham manager Alex Mcleish has accepted the job offer from the Scottish FA to manage the national team. Head of the Scottish FA has reported "We have some fantastic young players in the pool and we thought Alex was the perfect man to nurture them into stars, Scotland have always had fantastic players, but have struggled to gel as a team in recent years, Alex is definitely the man for the job"

Alex Mcleish has released a statement thanking Birmingham for his time at the club and he wished he could have bought some silverware. He has also dropped a hint that he knows who the next manager is and its going to be exciting for the club, but he was unwilling to share any more information than that!


So who will be the next Birmingham Manager?

Nothing official has been reported by the club, so here are a list of possibilities:

Sam Allardyce
Alan Shearer
Roy Hodgson
Ex-England Manager Steve McClaren
Gianfranco Zola

The favourite as reported by the bookies is Roy Hodgson who feels that he could bring some of his success at Fulham to Birmingham rather than the failures at Liverpool!

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Ruud Gullit announced as new manager of Birmingham!

Birmingham FC have reported the shock appointment of footballing legend Ruud Gullit as their new manager!

The club have advised that they think Ruud is the right man for the job and believe both Gullit and the club and ready for big things! MORE TO FOLLOW SOON

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We welcome new Birmingham FC manager Ruud Gullit, and we will now be asking him some questions:

Interviewer: So Ruud, firstly congratulations on the appointment, how are you feeling at the moment?
RG: I feel great, I would like to thank the chairmen of the club for handing me this opportunity and would like to tell the fans that I look forward to working with them to take Birmingham to new heights.

Interviewer: What sort of changes will be made around here, what's the situation with the background staff?
RG: Well the current set up is already great, but there is ample space for me to draft in some of my own people without anybody having to lose their job!

Interviewer: What about the players? Any thoughts on transfer targets yet?
RG: The board have listened to my goals for the club and that I believe with the right financial backing I can take Birmingham into Europe, and they have backed me. Everyone knows my style of football and the type of player required to help me achieve that style.

Interviewer: Ah, you are referring to 'Sexy football' I take it? But surely from your previous management experience in the Premier League you are aware this didn't work out that well for you?!
RG: I have come to realise now that my tactical knowledge and management style was ahead of my time, the league wasn't ready for my approach, football has evolved and sexy football will now be the key to bringing Birmingham forward as a club.

Interviewer: You sound confident you are going to make a big impact at the club.
RG: I think people are going to be suprised with me and more importantly Birmingham City FC

Interviewer: Great, well I look forward to following your progress
RG: Thanks.

Well there you have it, Ruud Gullit believes that he was ahead of time, and now he is going to demonstrate the real effects of 'sexy football'

 

[RichieW]

Well we are the end of my first week as manager at Birmingham, I must say I have been well received by the fans, they have made me feel very welcome.

I know everyone wants to know exactly who I’m going to be targeting. Well first things first, I have told the club I can achieve European qualification this year. They have backed me with a handsome sum of 21million and a wage allowance of 475k per week. I have sat down with my background staff and heres the list I have given to the club who have assured me they will do everything in their power to bring some of these players to the club:

Dos Santos (Spurs)
Upson (West Ham)
Benitez (I know he didn’t work out before, but he is a player that will suit my sexy style down to the ground, fast, strong with some flair!)
Axel Witsel
Madson
Gary Cahill
Rafael
Dodo

As you can see there are a mixture of players here, but most of them represent my style, they are a bunch of fast players, with a lot of flair and great creative minds. I also need a centre back, a stong but quite fast player.

The formation I have picked is 4 – 2 – 2 – 2 consisting of the usual back 4, 2 centre mids, strong with good passing and tackling skills, 2 wingers, fast, sexy players and 2 forwards, one as a traditional striker and one as a fast, flaired up poacher.

I have a lot of friendlies arranged, admittedly with clubs of a lesser skill base, but I think it is important for us to score a lot of goals in pre-season and not to concede to many, this will kick start the season, my aim is to have confidence sky high come that first game at home to Arsenal in the Premier League.

I have had great news from the Board – they have worked quickly and secured nearly every player on my list with the exception of Dos Santos and Upson, which is fine by me as they were going to be acting as cover anyway.

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Now I feel like my squad is complete, I have told the club to transfer any remaining funds across to the account for wages in case anyone pops up on a freebie.


I recommendeded the club set up a partnership with a championship club so we could send some of our young players out – they came back with Millwall! So I have shipped out my young left back Dodo out there, I know he just signed but he knows he is a player for the future and he will get great first team experience at Millwall and should come back a more developed player.

So first up in my long list of friendlies was Brechin, and I’m not going to lie, I have never even heard of them. I told the lads I just wanted them to work on their fitness and to show me what they can do, I’m looking for a performance, not a result:

Birmingham 8 – Brechin 0

Benitez 3, Larsson 2, Ferguson, Zigic, Johnson

Well I could ask for nothing more! A fantastic performance and a lot of goals!
Benitez showed exactly what he could do with great movement and powerful finishing, I was also please that Larsson managed a brace as he is key to my plans this year.

Well here’s how the rest of pre-season went:

Birmingham 4 – Grimsby 1

Jerome 3, Johnson


Birmingham 4 - Cowdenbeath 0

Dann, Hleb, Jerome (pen), Benitez


Birmingham 2 – Brighton 0

Jerome 2


Birmingham 8 - Crewe 0

Benitez 5 , Zigic 2, Michel, JIRANEK Sent off


Birmingham 4 – Coleraine 0

Benitez 2, fahey, zigic



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Pre-season summary:

I am over the moon at how the players have reacted to the style I am trying to bring to the club. I know we played weaker teams, but the amount of goals we scored was astronomical! And we only conceded once which is really important, I need to know my defence is up to scratch as we will be able to defend against the counter when my front 6 are up field!

I was also please with Jeromes input over the games he played, he showed he can put the ball in the back of the net and challenge for a spot up front.

Benitez however is most definately the man! He banged in 11 goals! Hopefully he can carry this form over to the competive matches!


Please give any feedback you wish, if there are any good points or bad points I would like to know!

 

[RichieW]

I woke up on the morning of my first competitive match very early, to be truthful I couldn’t really sleep…. I was so nervous, not necessarily nervous about losing, we were up against Arsenal one of the greatest teams in the Premiership, but I was nervous about a poor performance, all the hype surrounding my appointment and the critics about my previous spell in the Premiership, I needed to prove them wrong. I knew my style would work, I just didn’t know when it would kick in! I have played with some of the greatest football players in history, I played alongside Cruyff in 88 for christs sake, I have played with Zola, with Denis Bergkamp, Rijkaard, Koeman, Van Basten, Maldini, I could go on all day, I have seen these players at their best, I know what works, not many other managers can say the same, I’m going to show the world that my style of football, the passing game, sexy football will be the best way, I will make them eat their words…….

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Birmingham 0 – Arsenal 1

Diaby


Ok, we lost, but I have taken some great positives from this game. The goal in all fairness was a sloppy bit of play from the defence, but after this error they looked solid and Arsenal were unable to get past my boys. The attacking side of things also brought me great happiness, fair enough we didn’t score but we had 12 shots on goal with 7 of those on target. Fair play to Arsenal, they held out, they are a very good side, hopefully by the time we meet again at the Emirates, things will have started to fall into place and we will be a real thorn in their arses.

After the game Arsene Wenger told the BBC how impressed he was with Birminghams passing game, he went on to say that if this was how they played on the first day of the season it would be interesting to see how things progressed throughout the year.


Here’s how the other games went:


Birmingham 1 - Liverpool 1

Ferguson (pen) - N’Gog


I will take this result, it could have gone either way to be honest with both goal keepers producing some fantastic saves…. My game plan is coming together, the football is starting to flow, and we had 13 shots on goal, 7 of which on target. I am confident that the results will follow soon. Sexy football will prevail.


League Cup round 2:

Oxford 1 – Birmingham 7

Heslop - Larsson 4, Johnson, Benitez, Cahill


Villa 0 – Birmingham 3

Johnson, hleb, bowyer

A fantastic result, my first derby game and I couldn’t have asked for a better result and more importantly at the moment performance, we never gave them a chance to get their flow on, we, however were awesome and it was great to hear the crowd go wild after each goal, especially since we were away from home, I couldn’t hear a sound from the villa fans!

So here's the league table at the end of my first competitive month, I am extremely happy at the perfomances and results, if you look at the teams we have played, they are all teams which have been in the top 8 over the last few years, these are the teams we need to get results against and in my opinion we did, I look forward to the rematches in the second half of the season!

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Once my strikers start to feel the flow we are going to be a force to be reckoned with!

 

[joshmcph]

Good start I'm following

 

[RichieW]

Good start I'm following

Thanks, I'm not a computer whizz, so i'm unsure on how to do some of the fancier stuff, but I will try and better each post! Keep the comments coming I appreciate it

 

[dazamfc]

Good start mate. I love the kind of football you are TRYING to play. I will follow. Please have a look at mine and comment(click on my Sig below and it will take you to my story)

 

[RichieW]

Good start mate. I love the kind of football you are TRYING to play. I will follow. Please have a look at mine and comment(click on my Sig below and it will take you to my story)

Will do mate, I have been following yours already actually, I will pop you a comment and let you know what I think

 

[joshmcph]

Thanks, I'm not a computer whizz, so i'm unsure on how to do some of the fancier stuff, but I will try and better each post! Keep the comments coming I appreciate it

Yeah thats the same as me. I find all the stuff you have to do complicated otherwise i would have started a story by now

 

[Brian]

Nice story mate. I think you should maybe post some screenies of your tactics, signings and maybe a player of the month

 

[RichieW]

Nice story mate. I think you should maybe post some screenies of your tactics, signings and maybe a player of the month

Noted, thanks! I will try and put some more screenies in each update. Anything else let me know.

 

[Mr.Legendary]

Great start mate i will be following

 

[CaptainCrazy]

Nice going! Two tough games right off the bat but you handle it well. Better than I did with wolves anyway

I really liked Dos Santos as a player when I saw him play for Barcelona, too bad he hasn't really got going in Spurs though :/

 

[RichieW]

Update monday - im away until tomo night! cheers everyone for comments