Blues News: Consolidating the Lead

Birmingham City ended its long stretch of holiday games last Saturday with a comprehensive 3-0 win last Saturday at Wigan Athletic, powered by an Alfie May brace. also contributing were a third goal by Willum Willumsson and a couple of impressive stops by keeper Ryan Allsop despite a nasty head injury. The real hero of the game though was right back Ethan Laird who ad two assists and created the third goal as well.

The brace put May on 10 goals for the season. He joins Jay Stansfield (12 goals in league play) as the team’s second double-digit scorer. However, 5 of Stansfield’s goals have come from the spot, so May is well out in front on open play goals. Stansfield also has a goal in the EFL Cup.

The Wigan result was a lop-sided scoreline but the Blues did not in fact dominate play as they typically do; they held a relatively low 55% possession and were in fact outshot 15-7. Scoring on your first two shots in the game rather helps matters though.

That combined with Wycombe’s 1-1 draw with Blackpool left the Blues with a 2-point lead at the top of League One. Despite going down a central defender to a double-yellow in the 55th minute the Wanderers held a 1-0 lead until 3 minutes into second-half stoppage time to allow the Blues to break clear. And then on Tuesday Wycombe lost 0-1 at home to Huddersfield while Birmingham was idle. The 2-point lead is now accompanied by a 2-game advantage over both Wycombe and Wrexham, who are tied on points, as well as a 6-point lead and a 1-game advantage over the aforementioned Huddersfield. That’s getting almost dangerously comfortable.

However, league play takes a break this week and the world’s oldest soccer tournament takes center stage. Tomorrow Birmingham City takes on Lincoln City in the third round of the FA Cup. The good news for local fans here is that the game will be on ESPN+. The bad news is that kickoff is at 6:00am. That’s an unusually early noon kickoff UK time. also good news for the club though is that the opponent is 12th in League One and already lost to the Blues 1-3 early this season. A very favorable draw considering that the Premier League and Championship teams entered the Cup in this round.

Third round play has already started in fact; 3 games were played yesterday. Two more will be played today. One of those will be Wycombe on very short rest, taking on Championship side Portsmouth (1:40pm, ESPN+). The other game will involve the Blues’ cross-town rivals Aston Villa playing the other claret and blue club West Ham in an all-Premier League matchup (1:30pm, ESPN+). So Blues fans have some interest in both this afternoon’s games. Personally, I’m from London’s East End so am doubly invested in the second game.

If there are other FA Cup games you are interested in, you can see the full slate of ESPN+ games here.