Birmingham - Nottingham Forest

[Tricky]

One thing that has crossed my mind is the state of their pitch last night. Grass very short and the pitch was hard, had obviously not been watered and the bounce of the ball much higher than usual. Is this something that Bowyer has done specifically since he came in. Brum have a lot of tall players and the bounce would not be as hard to deal with. Their players would be used to it and could train on it as there would be fewer divots. Reminiscent in the opposite way to Direby's pitch when they won the championship and were used to playing on a mud heap. Could be an explanation of their upturn in form since Bowyer came in although let's face it some of the ball control and passing from Forest was absolutely terrible.

It sounds like an excuse but it was a massive factor in the way the game panned out. It was impossible for us to make even straightforward passes like we would normally like to do. It totally negated Garner's game for us and Mighten was a non existent entity as we couldn't play balls up to him and he couldn't control balls played into him. Players were slipping, it was bobbling away and yet longer passes played on the ground were skipping away too. And as Brum are now playing as a Wimbledon tribute act, it played into their strengths. It wouldn't surprise me if Bowyer was asking for that pitch to be prepared. He will have been looking for every opportunity to gain an advantage, as is his right.

Nice to hear a rational analysis of the game last night, Pap'.  Fair comment.

'Wimbledon tribute act.'  LOL.

Ya think Lee asked for it to be dug up and sanded?  Old school 70s/80s style?

SA.

Pap, wasn't a certain Brian Howard Clough reported to have spent the night at the Baseball Ground watering the pitch to make it as boggy as possible before Derby played Juventus in the European Cup Semi Final, 2nd leg?  :D

Yep, isn't the story that he fell asleep though and ended up absolutely flooding the pitch? I must get his autobiography off the shelf and give it another read.

:D :D :D