This article is part of Football FanCast’s Pundit View series, which provides opinion and analysis on recent quotes from journalists, pundits, players and managers…
Change looks to be in full effect at Birmingham City.
Blues defender Harlee Dean has come out and said that the club are going for a much more attack-minded style of play this year under Pep Clotet, in direct contradiction to the managers that have gone before him at St Andrew’s.
What’s he said?
Speaking to Birmingham Live, Dean, who was appointed club captain over the summer spoke about how there has been a change in philosophy at the club that has seen them take a lot of risks, which have sometimes paid off.
The defender said:
“Our philosophy this year is ‘We might as well go for the win’, because you only get one point for a draw. Anyone can beat anyone in this league, more so than ever now. That’s the way we’re trying to go about it, although it is difficult to think like that during a game when you can feel that you’re at least going to get a point.
“I don’t think there’s a lot of difference quality-wise between the teams at the bottom of the table and the sides at the top, so you’ve got to make sure you’re one hundred per cent for every game. If you can pick up results everywhere and don’t go on losing streaks who knows?”
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All about the balance
The results are there to be seen, with a recent report from Birmingham Live pointing out that Clotet currently has the third-highest winning percentage of any coach in the club’s history, despite the fact he has lost as many games as he has won across all competitions.
Although he has only been in charge for 15 games, so whether or not he’ll be able to keep this up over the course of the season so we can get a decent sample size remains to be seen.
Whilst it’s good to see a team with an attacking philosophy, rather than being happy with settling for draws as their main mantra, you do wonder if perhaps it’s holding the club back a bit.
Whilst Dean says that anyone can beat anyone in this league, that doesn’t mean that every match needs to end like that.
With Lukas Jutkiewicz talking recently about the club’s away form and how they need to pick up more points, perhaps the way to do that is to start settling for draws rather than ending up with defeats because the team was playing for the win. It could end up being somewhat problematic otherwise.
If the Blues can get a few undefeated runs together, they could set themselves up for a decent push to the playoffs in the second half of the season, but to do that they’ll have to go a little less gung-ho more often.