Birmingham City v Reading FC: Media Round-Up

As fun things to do on a Saturday afternoon go, this ranks as one of the lowest. A 6-1 defeat at the hands of a Birmingham side beaten 1-0 by Blackpool on their last outing, the media had a lot to say.

"Birmingham got firmly back on track with a ruthless 6-1 obliteration" lets start with SkySports, always eager to add a touch of  drama to any occasion, this time actually got it not far from the truth with us dominating for the first 3 minutes, then against the run of play Birmingham scoring. The rest of the report focuses on Zigic resigning for 10% of £65k a week salary (maybe we should try that with Pog?), and the fact that Birmingham looked shaky at the back. Not quite sure about that, as from where I was watching the game they seemed quite controlled.

The BBC are a little less forgiving with the headline "Demarai Gray starred with a first-half hat-trick as Birmingham City thrashed Reading 6-1 at St Andrew's." This is probably a little more to the point, and pretty much sums up the game by stating the point that we are marooned in mid table. They actually publish the quote from Adkins, "It was very, very close in terms of the game but it wasn't in terms of the scoreline." Not entirely sure what game Adkins where watching as we were dreadful, and made Birmingham look like a vintage Barca.

The Guardian get this week's award for the shortest—and probably most pointless—bit of journalism with their 7 line  "round-up". Focusing on Gary Rowett praising Demarai, and again Nigel Adkins saying that we "will reflect" (was this a 1-0 unlucky loss, or a 6-1 hammering?).

Sportsmole give quite a good factual account of the match, brief but to the point, and also lead with the quotes from Adkins and also the fact that Demarai seems to now have attracted interest from a number of Premiership teams. It will be interesting see if he is still there come February,

The Daily Mail seem to be getting quite high onto the decent reporting stakes table, with a good account of the game, once again focusing on Birmingham (hardly unexpected) but with a couple of good photos as well. I do like the way that they summarise facts of the game at the top of the article.

Clubcall do a similar piece to everyone else, however what's baffling me is what the photo at the top of the article is. If anyone does understand the relevance then please let me know! They do however point to the result being a little harsh on the Royals, conceding one or two may be harsh but 6...

Charlie Watts at GetReading probably hits the nail on the head with his headline "Birmingham City FC 6, Reading FC 1 - Woeful Royals humiliated at St Andrew's" and as usual gives a good comprehensive view of the game, he doesn't pull any punches.

The official ReadingFC site has the post match reaction from Adkins, which from what I can gather is approximately 300 words of sidestepping any actual comment. I have become convinced that Adkins is the master of not actually answering any question posed to him.

101Great Goals has a little match report, but also has videos of the goals, Demarai again the focus. They also have numerous videos which are interesting from the Birmingham angle.

The rest of the sites all pretty much using similar stories to the above with ESPN FC and Football365 all having similar stories.

Onto Watford, and what should be an interesting game. It is interesting to see the odds of Adkins being sacked getting slashed. By the time I do this piece next week, if the performance is anything like Saturday's, then I will be shocked if Adkins is still in the dugout.