And with that, we bid you farewell. Pete Lansley will have a match report for you in short order. Cheers!
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Lovely work by Agbonlahor to come on, start a fight, get booked and then score his first goal in 14 months to win the game. He’s earned his money and no mistake.
Oh Harry. Birmingham remain in serious trouble, two points above the relegation zone with two games to go. Redknapp reckoned Birmingham would need four points to survive, so now he’s only got two games to get them.
Full-time: Aston Villa 1-0 Birmingham City
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins: A free-kick is half-cleared to Stewart, who shoots but it goes well wide. Keita is on for Kieftenbeld.
87 mins: Stewart whips a cross over, Davis tries to get a flicked header but doesn’t get enough on it, and Hutton clears.
Terrific challenge by the steward here.
85 mins: Now Birmingham make a change, as Greg Stewart is on for Maghoma.
84 mins: “Bruce sends on yet another midfielder,” reports Pete Lansley from Villa Park. “Hourihane replacing Hogan who looks about as happy as most Blues fans right now. At least that’s relieved Gabby of his self-imposed need to fill in at left-wing-back.”
80 mins: Villa fans sing “You’re getting sacked in the morning,” to Redknapp. Banter is alive and well in the second city.
79 mins: Adams is fouled just outside the area, to the right. Free-kick in a spicy place for Blues. Maghoma crosses, but it’s headed away by Jedinak.
75 mins: Meanwhile, Gary Gardner is on, replacing Adomah. His brother Craig is of course in the Birmingham team, and I think this is the first time the two will ever have faced each other in professional football.
74 mins: Birmingham trying to get back into the game, and Maghoma shoots from just inside the box but it’s blocked. Jutkiewicz tries to collect the loose ball, but he’s crowded out by some defenders.
72 mins: Adam Griffiths, Despondent of the Holte End just after half-time, has perked up a bit: “This might have been worth leaving the house for after all. Yay!”
70 mins: That’s Agbonlahor’s first goal since February last year.
69 mins: Well, he’s made an impact. He’s already been involved in a scrap, and now he’s broken the deadlock. Agbonlahor was in the midst of a goalmouth scramble, all the while seemingly wrestling with a defender, and after a few headers bounce around he manages to stab the ball home from just inside the six-yard box. A chap gets so excited that he removes his shirt and dashes onto the pitch, wrestled away by a steward.
GOAL! Aston Villa 1-0 Birmingham City (Agbonlahor 69)
What a few minutes for the sub!
65 mins: Hey, we’re cooking now. Davis shoots low from inside the area but Johnstone gets fingertips to it and keeps the effort out.
63 mins: Lansbury puts a free-kick into the box, but Chester heads it over. Villa’s first proper chance of the game?
62 mins: Agbonlahor makes an immediate impact: after a bit of a scuffle in the corner with Ryan Shotton, he’s booked, along with his combatant. “Gabby is so pumped up,” says Pete Lansley. “Already shown fists in fun to the Blues fans, now exchanging fisticuffs with Shotton, who pulled him over.”
61 mins: Just before that substitution there was a brief flare-up, as Davis and Hutton got themselves involved in a minor square-go. Anything to get a little bit of excitement into this game, I guess.
59 mins: And here is Agbonlahor, who replaces Grealish.
56 mins: Guardian man Pete Lansley brings news of an impending change: “Looks like it’s time for Gabby Agbonlahor. Long-time scourge of the Blues, and Villa need some inspiration up top. No11, out for three months with a hamstring, is getting his final instructions and the home crowd are chanting his name.”
53 mins: Lansbury hoys a pass out of play. Sounds like most of the Villa fans would rather have been doing something else this afternoon, not just our friend Adam.
51 mins: Gardner attempts a shot from a free-kick, but that goes straight into the wall.
50 mins: Adam Griffiths sounds like he would rather have been doing something else this afternoon. “Greetings from the Holte End,” he writes. “This isn’t very good at all; no shots on target, no bookings, one up front against a defence containing 97 year old Paul Robinson. No flair, no pace. It’s so bad that a) I’m emailing you for want of entertainment on the pitch and b) I’d bring on Gabby just for the hell of it. I’m not at all sure this was worth leaving the house for this morning.”
49 mins: Should have mentioned earlier, but Jutkiewicz is out there, having seemingly shaken off whatever problem that caused him to have treatment on the pitch at half-time.
48 mins: Look who’s in the crowd, disguised as a skateboarder.
#AVFC 0-0 #BCFC - MATCH PIC: Great to see you here, Marc, supporting the lads! #AVLBIR pic.twitter.com/dxdryJO1Oh
— Aston Villa FC (@AVFCOfficial) April 23, 2017
46 mins: And, much like the meat tray in the reduced aisle of Lidl, we are off. “No subs; good sarnies,” says our man at the ground, Pete Lansley.
Well, it’s not been a classic encounter. Birmingham have, by common consensus, been slightly the better team, but that’s not saying a great deal. A possible concern for them was Jutkiewicz sitting down in the centre circle at the break, and he received some treatment before limping off down the tunnel.
Half-time: Aston Villa 0-0 Birmingham City
Peeeeeeeeeeeep.
43 mins: Hutton gets a telling off from the referee for a heavy ol’ challenge on Maghoma, but that’s all. No bookings so far for either side.
42 mins: Villa on the attack - Grealish crosses for Hogan, his header is blocked and the ball breaks to Bacuna, and he skims a low shot towards goal but it flashes across and wide.
38 mins: Big chance missed for Birmingham - Jutkiewicz crosses for Adams, who has a clear shot at goal from about 12 yards out, but he sidefoots the ball over. Clearest chance of the game so far.
36 mins: Well exactly, Harry.
33 mins: More poor delivery, as Maghoma attempts a cross that is cut out before it can even get close to any danger.
31 mins: Jutkiewicz has a chance to shoot but Taylor gets there to nip that one in the bud.
28 mins: Still nothing much of note in either penalty area. Fair bit of bluster, Bruce was briefly unhappy with a couple of robust challenges on his players from Nsue and Adams, but not much else to report.
24 mins: Grealish, spritely again, looks for Lansbury in the area, but it’s headed clear by Robinson. That, incidentally, is defender Paul Robinson, who is only 38.
22 mins: Here he is. Back, back, back.
20 mins: Grealish is back up. Apologies for alarming you, Villa fans.
19 mins: Problems for Villa - the ball is kicked out so Jack Grealish can receive treatment for what could be a hamstring twang.
Always enjoyable when this happens...
17 - Adams grabs the ball as he thinks he's fouled but the referee gives Villa the free-kick. Good start. 0-0 #bluesLIVE
— Birmingham City FC (@BCFC) April 23, 2017
18 mins: Bacuna is fed by Taylor down the left, he clips it into the box towards Hogan and Adomah, to which the former gets a head on the ball but it goes well wide.
16 mins: Jedinak has ripped his shirt. Saucy. He now has a fresh, in-one-piece effort on his back.
14 mins: Not many opportunities at either end. That Jutkiewicz chance, that he couldn’t quite reach, is probably the best either side has managed.
11 mins: Gardner curls over a cross, but it’s just too far in front of Jutkiewicz, and Birmingham’s chance is gone.
9 mins: More predictability, as Mile Jedinak goes in strongly on Kieftenbeld. No booking, but that may well have just been the ref trying to keep a lid on things early doors.
6 mins: Rapid start, which was predictable. Villa have been on top so far but there’s been little pattern to the game.
3 mins: Gardner takes a corner for Blues, and as you might imagine gets a rather spicy reception from the home crowd.
1 min: And we’re away.
“They don’t need knocking at this stage,” says Redknapp about his Birmingham players, saying he’s been broadly trying the positive reinforcement route in his brief time in charge thus far. Which is probably pretty much all he can do.
This taxi picking up villa and blues fans outside grand central this morning👏👏 pic.twitter.com/Oza7oljm0E
— Pat Frost (@KitmanPat) April 23, 2017
“He’s a really good football man,” continues Brucey.
“He’ll try to breathe a bit of confidence in them,” says Steve Bruce of HJ Redknapp. He’ll bloody have to.
Team news
Aston Villa: Johnstone, Hutton, Chester, Baker, Taylor, Jedinak, Lansbury, Bacuna, Adomah, Hogan, Grealish. Subs: Bunn, Elphick, Agbonlahor, Hourihane, Bree, Gardner, Amavi.
Birmingham: Kuszczak, Nsue, Shotton, Robinson, Grounds, Maghoma, Kieftenbeld, Gardner, Davis, Adams, Jutkiewicz. Subs: Legadins, Tesche, Gleeson, Stewart, Dacres-Cogley, Bielik, Keita.
Preamble
Proper football men. Two of them. Proper, proper, proper football men. Is this the most proper football man game of all time? Steve Bruce has already been in the Midlands for a little while, propering up the football in Birmingham, and now he’s joined in his proper crusade by Harry Redknapp. Proper.
Today though, the two men have rather different goals. One is merely keeping his team on the straight and narrow, at least trying to make sure that nothing silly happens in the remainder of the season and basically keeping his players awake until summer comes, while the other is down in the muck and nettles, given one month and three games to save his new team from the merciless hell of relegation from the Championship. It’s tricky to tell if Redknapp’s job is made easier or worse by the short time period available: will he have insufficient chance to get his ideas across on the training ground, or will Birmingham be able to ride the usually short-lived ‘new manager bounce’ all the way to safety, relegation avoided by Redknapp simply not being Gianfranco Zola?
Either way, one thing’s for certain: with apologies to Blues fans, who have suffered quite enough this season, and with a promise that it’s nothing against their club, it will be bloody funny if he doesn’t manage it.
Kick-off: 12.00 BST
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