Blues News: one title won, one title lost

Last weekend Birmingham City found themselves in the comfortable position of winning the League One title without actually playing. While they were waiting to play Peterborough United for the EFL Trophy at Wembley on Sunday, Wrexham were drawing 0-0 at Wigan Athletic on Saturday. That left Wrexham 13 points adrift with only four games left to play and thus they handed the Blues the crown.

Unfortunately, that did not bode well for the EFL Trophy and the Blues proceeded to lose 0-2 in a poorly-played game and Peterborough United became back-to-back champions. The less said about that game the better, to be honest. However, the two had played just 5 days earlier; Birmingham City won 2-1 and it’s hard to beat any team twice in that short a timeframe.

If you weren’t aware, it’s Easter weekend and in England that traditionally means a double-game weekend with most teams playing Good Friday and Easter Monday. Birmingham City is playing 22nd-place Crawley Town (it’s on Paramount+) as I write this. The score is 0-0 at half time despite a massive shooting advantage for the Blues. They will play at 21st-place Burton Albion Monday (9:00am, no US TV). They then have two more games by next Sunday, playing at 14th-place Stevenage Thursday (1:45pm, Paramount+) and at home against Mansfield Town Sunday (9:00am, no US TV). That crazy schedule is largely due to the team having multiple games postponed for international callups and the EFL Trophy final. They then play their final two games the following week. That’s 6 games in 16 days.

The only target the team has left this season is the EFL points record. They need 12 points from the last 6 games to do that. That’s clearly an achievable goaal but the cramped schedule will make it rather harder than it might otherwise be.

As for the second automatic promotion spot that remains a tight race between Wycombe and Wrexham. They are also both playing right now and Wrexham is down0-1 against Bristol Rovers and Wycome is 0-0 with Bolton Wanderers. On a live basis, that puts Wycombe in second on gosl difference.

Update: The Crawley game ended 0-0, so the Blues now have failed to score in two straight games. They now need 11 points from 5 games for the record. Wycombe beat Bolton 2-0 and Wrexhan drew 1-1 with Bristol Rovers, so Wycombe now has a 1-point lead for second place.