Saturday, 9th January 2010 – KO: 17:30

Under normal circumstances, I would be quite confident of a win for Manchester United in this one. Our previous games against Birmingham have tended to be fairly close affairs (especially at St Andrews) but they have failed to beat us in any of our previous meetings.

However, Birmingham have been this season’s surprise package and are the real form team in the Premier League at this moment and after a bit of a stuttering start to the season (during which time we beat them 1-0 at OT) are now unbeaten in their last twelve matches and this has included creditable draws against City, Liverpool and Chelsea.

A feature of their home games so far this season is that very few goals have been scored (1.30 goals per game on average).

I can see something very similar today.

With Chelsea now not playing until next Saturday (due to their game against Hull today being postponed), this represents a chance for us to go top of the League. The question is: Can we take it?

Well, we really should be able to and the team that takes the field this evening will be nothing like the team that performed so woefully against Leeds last weekend.

Since last weeks disaster, United have been written off. The empire is crumbling, Fergie has lost the plot, we’re missing Ronaldo, we should have signed someone for £50 Million etc etc etc.

Fergie has heard it all before and it is during these times of trouble that we have seen the best of him and his teams down the years.

What would normally be a fairly unattractive fixture has been transformed into the perfect opportunity to prove the doubters wrong and to do so from the Premier League summit.

It won’t be easy and we might have to do what only Bolton (!?) have managed to do at St Andrews so far this season and score two goals but we should be capable of that. Otherwise, the responsibility will lie with Brown and Evans to keep Birmingham out at the other end.

Despite the generally low scoring nature of games at Birmingham so far this season, there’s something about 2-1 that is ringing out about this one.

An interesting little sideshow to this one is that Mame Biram Diouf is clear to play, has been given Tevez’s old Number 32 shirt and could make an appearance. Are we about to see yet another masterstroke from the best manager in the business?

I’m going to go against the bookies and the stats for this one because I just have a very strong feeling that there are going to be some highly motivated United players out there tonight with careers to save and points to prove. Birmingham will play their part and against our dodgy defence, could well score at least one of their own.

The bet will be 2 points OVER 2.5 Goals @ 2.19 With Canbet.

A bitterly cold evening in Birmingham with temperatures as low as -6°C – the type of conditions that might have even induced a bit of running from Berbatov, if only to keep warm. Unfortunately, Berbatov was completely dropped for this one as Fergie went with the familiar 4-3-3/4-5-1 away formation with Rooney alone up front.

The first half started very well for United as we overran Birmingham in midfield and enjoyed plenty of possession.

However, apart from a decent attempt from Rooney which in turn produced a very good save from Joe Hart, we had very little to show for the possession as Birmingham played with plenty of men behind the ball and at times, had seven or eight players in the box and any shots we had were blocked by what seemed like one of eight goalkeepers!

We were looking for that little bit of magic from someone (the kind of magic we bought Berbatov for but which he has rarely produced) but no one was able to provide it.

Personally, I felt that with the midfield of Valencia, Carrick, Fletcher, Scholes and Park, one of them had to do more to get forward and support Rooney who was often completely outnumbered and, as often happens in this situation, was starting to look a bit frustrated. There were times when you could have thrown a blanket over Scholes, Fletcher and Carrick and it was screaming for one of them to get forward and leave it to the other two.

Anyway, totally against the run of play, Birmingham got a corner after around 38 minutes and from the resulting melee, scored a pretty scrappy goal which put them 1-0 up at half-time.

It has not been the first time this season that we have dominated possession only to find ourselves a goal down against the run of play but this really did look quite desperate because we simply weren’t troubling Joe Hart.

The second half was a much more even affair as Birmingham really got to grips with us and had several attempts on goal which were saved by Kusczak.

However, we kept plugging away and eventually, a low cross fizzed into the box brought about an own goal after 64 minutes to make the score 1-1.

At this stage, I expected us to press on and grab the winner but for all of our huffing and puffing, we simply weren’t able to and, again, it was probably Birmingham who had the better chances to get the winner.

Mame Biram Diouf did get to make his debut but it all fell a bit flat for the lad as within minutes of him coming on, Fletcher was harshly sent off for two bookable offences and the usual Manchester United grand-stand finish just didn’t materialise. When the assistant referee held up six minutes of added time, we were all expecting something but Birmingham kept hold of the ball for almost the entire six minutes and reduced us to scraps.

One thing that was noticable about Diouf, however, is his pace. This boy is rapid. Once he has been here a bit longer and the players get used to him, I can see him giving defences all kinds of trouble with him getting behind. What remains to be seen is his composure in front of goal. He looks likely to get a few chances if he gets the games. The question is: can he convert them?

We’ll have to wait and see on that one.

Anyway, a bit of an own goal from me here. I identified that Birmingham home games are low scoring and this one obviously fell into that category in the end.