NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo

By: Stephen | October 24th, 2009

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Birmingham City FC 2 Sunderland 1.

And we didn’t score any of the goals, all came from BCFC players. And that doesn’t bode well for Darren Bent and his drive to be on the England Squad. (Which regardless of this result shouldn’t be a problem). In order to be the club that we need to be, beating Birmingham is something that has to be done. Face it, they’re a club who are beneath us in talent, and everything.

I’m afraid that this is what we’ll get this year. Two very good matches, and then one down. It’s part of the learning process for the club right now. I’ll take this if it means we finish in the 10-15 range.

SAFC: Gordon, Bardsley, Richardson, Turner, Ferdinand, Malbranque (Campbell, 68), Reid, Cana (C) (Zenden, 68), Henderson (McCartney, 68), Bent, Jones.

Subs Not Used: Fulop, Nosworthy, Da Silva, Healy.

Booked: Gordon (90).

Sent Off: None.

Birmingham: Hart, Carr (C), Bowyer, Ridgewell, Larsson (Carsley, 83), Jerome (McSheffrey, 77), Chucho, Ferguson, Johnson, Dann, McFadden (O’Connor, 76).

Subs Not Used: Taylor, Phillips, Queudrue, Parnaby.

Booked: Johnson (24), Ferguson (82), McSheffrey (90).

Sent Off: None.

Post Match Interview with SAFC.com:

Steve Bruce
“We didn’t really play until the last half-hour. If we played like we did in the last half-hour with something about us it might have been a different story.

“But we waited until we were 2-0 down and if you play in the Premier League that makes things very difficult.

“We made a fist of things in the last half-hour; we should have taken that attitude in the first half where, let’s be fair, we were poor.

“The lack of consistency must be eradicated. We did so well last week and everything seemed great, but the first half was not acceptable.”

“At half time we said we had to get the early goal, but instead they’ve got it. If we’d have scored earlier then I knew for a fact that with the run they’ve been on Birmingham would become anxious.

“But it wasn’t to be. There were two glorious opportunities at the end but to be fair it would have been unjust if we had taken something from the game.

And Bruce has tasked his side with shrugging off the defeat and bouncing back to the form which saw four points taken from two meetings with top-four sides, adding:

“The big concern for me is we have to repeat the performances against Manchester United and Liverpool.

“To take this club forward, we have to have the mentality where we’re not going to just show up for the big boys, but arrive at places like this and show the attitude to get a result.”

Next up for the Black Cats? Aston Villa at mid-week.