Birmingham City 0 - West Bromwich Albion 0

Date:	Tuesday 10th February 2026
Competition:	Sky Bet Championship
Birmingham: 5.8	(4-2-3-1) Beadle, Osayi-Samuel (Iwata, 58), Neumann, Klarer, Wagner, Solis, Seung-Ho (Doyle, 15), Roberts (Vicente, 58), Ducksch, Osman (Gray, 79), Stansfield (Priske, 58) Unused subs: Allsop, Furuhashi, Fujimoto, Panzo
WBA: 6.4	(4-4-2) O'Leary 6.9, Imray 5.7 (Gilchrist, 46 6.0), Phillips 6.9 (Bielik, 91 5.6), Taylor 6.8, Styles 7.2, Wallace 6.0 (Johnston, 61 5.3), Molumby 6.3, Mowatt 6.3, Jimoh-Aloba 6.3 (Diakité, 70 5.5), Price 4.9, Heggebø 6.1 (Dike, 61 5.1) Unused subs: Griffiths, Maja, Whitwell, Bostock Manager: Eric Ramsay 5.4
Referee:	Adam Herczeg 5.7
Attendance:	27,307 Home Fans 5.6 Away Fans 7.4

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Ratings submitted so far: 12

Ancient Baggie:

In the present situation I guess we should be happy with the point and in fairness the team put a shift in defensively to see it out.

Unfortunately we looked extremely short of any creativity when we had the ball and only managed a couple of half chances to score. I'm guessing it's going to be a similar story for the rest of the season but I'm not sure we will be able to just keep enough clean sheets to stay up so we're going to need to find some goals from somewhere.

As for individual performances I thought Taylor probably had his best game for us and Jimoh-Aloba had a few decent moments but Price was poor again and when Dike came on for Heggebø we couldn't keep the ball in their half of the pitch.

Still, onwards we go hopefully we can turn Coventry over, a goal would be nice. COYB

Brendan Clegg:

We did exactly what we needed to do there - properly dug in and got a result.

I was in The Good Intent for a pre match pint when the lineup came out - and I nearly switched my pint of Green Duck Mild for a pint of vodka; it didn’t look especially pretty even though we knew there were injuries.

I’m not a fan of the brash Blues owners but in the ground I have to give them credit - that’s pretty much the best pre-match routine I’ve ever experienced… the combination of light show, fire and local music history. The brilliant away end tried to out-sing it but it was pretty awesome. As soon as it ended though we were pumped up and in fine voice - another unbelievable atmosphere.

The players gave us something to rally around. It wasn’t pretty but we ran hard and flew into tackles. It was a bit Corberan-esque in how we were drilled and disciplined, how Mowatt dropped deep between the back 2 to get on the ball and how we were geared to keep them in front of us and away from harm. We were just a little too direct too quickly sometimes.

Our attacking threat was as you’d expect with that lineup… very limited.

Heggebø held it up well at times but isn’t going to run in behind… Price offers little beyond, to be fair, impressive running capacity, Wallace is solid and cute but the legs aren’t there and Jamma looks really talented but miles off being fit enough to play out wide. If the inclusion of Imray over Gilchrist was there to give us a bit of attacking intent from deep on the break, then it didn't really work because he had a pretty torrid opening 20 minutes where he looked miles off being a footballer - although in fairness he did start to find his (two left?) feet afterwards.

We did, through sheer aggression and effort though, have spells in both half’s when we were on top, putting them under pressure and we had a few corners, got shots off, had some breaks where better quality or pace may have helped us.

I thought Blues made the game easier for us thanks to what I would call their over-coached tippy tappy silliness. They tried to play lots of clever stuff deep in their own half. At times it was okay but Championship players just generally aren't good enough to do it under pressure and there were plenty of times where they kicked it out of allowed us to pressure them into mistakes. Quite why they didn't put us under pressure more directly with our back four is beyond me - but smacks of another 'one way' manager who regurgitates coaching-slop in the after matches. I'm not bitter!

I thought our biggest risk areas in the half were runners off Jamma, who we must remember is a good 2 years younger than Iling-Junior, and Imray walking a red card tightrope. Other than that we looked pretty solid.

Gilchrist came on for Imray at HT which was the kind of obvious sensible sub that seemed to evade Mason, and then we had another spell of good running and pressure where nothing quite came off or landed for us and it seemed like every niggling foul went their way.

Our further subs of Dike and Johnston for Hegge and Wallace also felt about right and kept us in the contest. It was the sub of Jamma for Diakite which, while understandable as he was gassed and we needed to hold on, pretty much surrendered the game their way for the last 15-20 where it really was all about running the clock down, keeping it tight and just walloping it long for Dike to chase.

That last minute disallowed goal felt dreadful for 2 or 3 seconds... Phillips off the pitch and it feeling like once again lady luck had escaped us. It was a welcome flag and the right call.

Over the game we got lucky and earned our luck - Styles and Taylor both clearing off the line, O'Leary making some great saves, the offside decision rightly going our way. I also didn't especially see it at the time but we should have had a penalty when their keeper tried to decapitate Phillips. We also applied the dark arts really well and early enough to keep them in areas of minimum danger.

It was a brilliant 0-0 draw and we roared them off the field. Sometimes a result is worth more than points it earns and, for belief, maybe this was that.

For me it is a little of of a question of IFs now. We've got a free-pass weekend where we're probably in just a bit too much trouble to risk going all out for a result. 2 full weeks to try and get a couple of players back and get the fitness up of others.

If we can keep the system and if we can find a way of adding a bit more threat by getting MJ in the 11 and Jamma either fit enough to either run a lot harder out wide or play him through the middle - there is enough here to get the wins we need to stay up even though it wont be pretty. At least they're now giving us something to really rally behind.

O'Leary - 7 I think we lose that game with Griffiths in goal... just the pressure of it. Some good solid saves... still ropey on crosses.
Imray - 5 Had an absolute nightmare 20 minutes. To be fair he rallied and did better but he was rightly hooked.
Phillips - 7 Just big and horrible.
Taylor - 7 Fair dos. I was terrified. Incredible clearance and fought doggedly all game.
Styles - 7 Just lunatic energy and defiance. Loved it.
Mowatt - 7 Passed it well when he could. Won loads of battles.
Molumby - 7 Same. Kept flying into things. Scrapped away.
Wallace - 6 Just solid and reliable
Price - 5 Ran and ran and ran. If the games was about running alone he'd be brilliant. It isn't, but you can fault the effort.
Jamma - 6 Just touches of class and potential. Need to find a way to get more out of him but looks like he could be some talent.
Heggebø - 6 Old school battling performance, got us up the pitch.

Gilchrist - 6 Solid enough.
Johnston - 6 busy but nothing came off
Dike - 6 just ran and put himself about
Diakite - 5 Difficult to get the pace of the game... a few nervy moments.

Kev Buckley:

As mid-table mediocrity games go, this was pretty mediocre, although the away point does move us closer to preserving that status by the end of the season, especially with other results going our way.

Also worth noting that the weather played a part in the rather drab spectacle, in that the amount of water on the ground prevented either side from playing the slick, incisive, passing game that they might have, although the drag on the ball may have actually helped some of the typically overhit passes from appearing to be so?

Despite the return of wing-back specialist Imray into the starting XI, Ramsay stuck with a back four: Taylor and Heggebo also getting starts.

Just after the ten-minute mark, Styles, on our goal-line, just managed to keep his legs together enough to half-block a goalbound shot, though would not have known all that much about the way that the ball then bounced around below his crotch and into the hand he'd sheltered behind him, so as to keep it from being in an un-natural position.

Shortly after that Imray gave away a poor yellow, after his man got past him into space.

O'Leary was required to make saves twice before the 30-minute mark, first, as a break into our left-back area allowed the Bloose player to drive a shot across him, and then, after Styles was booked in an area that afforded Blooze another opportunity.

As the first half petered out, a bit of pin-ball on the edge of the areas saw Albion having three shots blocked in quick succession.

The latest episode in the "pull off the defender on a yellow at half time" series saw Gilchrist on for Imray, although Styles' staying out there probably speaks more to our lack of full-back options than anything else.

The set-your-watch-by-them, on-the-hour, subs saw Wallace and Heggebo replaced, like for like, by Johnston and Dike, although ten minutes after those, left-winger Jimoh-Aloba made way for an extra man in centre midfield, Diakite. Price, who had been up somewhere alongside Heggebo/Dike, moved out to the left in what was now a 451, although he did "take one for the team", in blatantly pulling back a player, as the home side tried to up their game, late on.

As stoppage time began, yet another defender went off injured, Phillips being replaced by Bielik, although with stoppage time almost over, our remaining defenders failed to deal with a ball into the box, only to see the goal ruled out as an attacker had been standing, offside, in front of O'Leary, not that the custodian would have saved had the attacker not been there to duck under it, but, rules is rules.

It'll be interesting to see how Ramsay approaches the Cup game at the weekend, given he won't need to set up to gain another point.

Finally time to cue the chants of:

A-ttack
A-ttack
A-ttack; A-ttack; A-ttack

then?