Birmingham City Preseason: Success Breeds Pressure for Alex Mcleish

Birmingham kicked off their pre-season with victory in the 'prestigious' Xtep Cup in Hong Kong.

This victory put me in a thoughtful frame of mind, following Blues stellar season, finishing 9th in the league, with everyone ahead being established clubs and big spenders, and a good cup run in the FA cup--what more can we expect?

Alex Mcleish has overachieved, bearing in mind most Birmingham fans at the start of the season would have taken a 17th placed finish, but success breeds pressure for more success.

To emulate this season would be a remarkable achievement, and to better it would be a minor football miracle.

Now obviously the key word to bear in mind is to be "reasonable"... but, if Birmingham were to have a chance of beating their best league finish since Trevor Francis was a player, they would need to make the following changes:

Goals: Obvious and yet devilishly difficult at the same time, Birmingham need a regular goal scorer. Last season Cameron Jerome scored 11 goals and he will need to advance this again.

Long term injury plagued striker Gary O'Conner is a good player when fit and might have an important role to play, leading the line with his strength and work rate.

New signing, 6'8 foot Nikoli Zigic will have pressure to deliver on him immediately. His size and strength means that there are alternate combinations to mix and match with. With Jerome he will be target-man looking to unleash Jerome's pace with flick ons. With O'Conner Blues will have two brutes smashing through defences.

Veteran Kevin Phillips is another player with a role to play. At his age he is resigned to 'super-sub' appearances but as long as he keeps delivering he will be given longer run outs. 

Mcleish is seemingly after a foil to his target men, and he is specifically after a small and agile striker. Time will tell whether he manages and/or it is successful.

Goalkeeper : Losing Joe Hart to Man City was a bitter blow when for a while it looked as though Blues might have been able to make it a permanent signing.

To those who are worried about the signing of former England international Ben Foster I say remember this: Hart was far from confidence inspiring in the beginning. If our keeper coach can improve him so much hopefully he can do the same with Foster and his sometimes dubious decision making.

Left-Back : Liam Ridgewell deputised at left-back for the majority of last season and did very well, but he is a centre-back and lacks the agility and acceleration to play wing-back against the better teams.

A new left-back would offer the dual benefits of both giving Blues a proper linking wing-back and offer Ridgewell the ability to properly challenge for a centre-back slot. At the end of the season he played with Roger Johnson in the middle and they linked highly effectively, Scott Dann watch out.

Ultimately if Birmingham don't do as well and come lower mid-table, I will not complain, survival is the byword in your second season and the dreaded 'second season syndrome' must be avoided at all costs.

If Birmingham do in fact manage to go one better and finish 9th or even above then Alex Mcleish should immediately be given Manager of the Season and probably a Knighthood because he will have overachieved two seasons running, and we will have to call it something other than overachievement.