Blues News: One Club, Two Cups

This past week Birmingham City played two games in two separate cup tournaments. The big one was first: the F.A. Cup. In the 3rd round on Saturday the Blues beat Lincoln City 2-1 in thick fog. Ayumu Yokoyama scored just 32 seconds into the game and Lyndon Dykes added a second in the 77th minute with a long-range attempt off the outside of his foot. The Blues conceded a relatively meaningless 90th-minute PK but held on. The team moves on but now faces one of the big guys: they will host Newcastle United in the 4th round the weekend of February 8th.

Then on Tuesday Birmingham City traveled to Swindon Town for the EFL Trophy Round of 16. Yokoyama opened the scoring again, although it took him 49 minutes this time to do so. Then in a bizarre turn of events Swindon sub Harry Smith tied the game up and then deflected a corner kick into his own goal in the 89th minute to give the visitors the win. The draw for the quarter-finals will be held tomorrow. The Blues’ potential opponents are Cheltenham Town (13th in League Two), Peterborough United (the defending champions and currently 19th in League One) and the winner of Leyton Orient (8th in League One) and Stevenage (14th in League One). The games will be played the week of February 3rd.

Tomorrow it’s back to league action and there’s another double-game week coming up. At 9:00am the Blues face Exeter City (no US TV). Exeter are currently 15th and were handily beaten 0-2 by the Blues in the opposite fixture back in November. Then on Thursday is a key game: the team travels to Wales to play Wrexham (1:50pm, Paramount+, unsurprisingly). City get next weekend off before playing another important road game at Huddersfield on Tuesday (also to be streamed here).

Wrexham of course sit in 3rd right now, with Huddersfield breathing down their necks. They have this weekend off as they played yesterday and lost 1-2 at Shrewsbury. Shrewsbury are 21st but are proving something of a potential spoiler; you may remember they beat the Blues 3-2 a couple of months back. The loss kept Wrexham on 51 points and prevented them from going top of League One. Instead, they remain 2 points behind the Blues and have played three more games. Huddersfield are 4 points behind them but have two games in hand. This upcoming stretch of games will be pivotal for several teams. Stuck in the middle of all this are Wycombe Wanderers, also 2 points behind Birmingham City on 2 additional games. Tomorrow they play at 9th-place Mansfield Town. Will the Blues be able to extend their lead? We shall see.

Lastly, the team announced today that it has acquired defender Grant Hanley on a free transfer from Championship club Norwich City. Hanley, who has extensive Championship and Premier League experience, will add depth to an already solid back line as the team drives for the title and promotion.