Daniel Rees gives thoughts on Aitor Karanka’s Birmingham City tenure after diminishing confidence, a sluggish playing style and dreadful results see the Spaniard depart St Andrew’s
For all the optimism of new beginnings under a manager who had history of guiding Championship sides to the top flight, Aitor Karanka’s reign as Birmingham City boss ended with a familiar sense of resignation and despair.
These are emotions which have become a mainstay for Blues fans over the last decade, during which time the club has lurched from one relegation battle to the next. Sooner rather than later, one senses that their luck just might run out.
Karanka’s final game in charge, a 0-3 home reverse against Nigel Pearson’s Bristol City, saw Birmingham squander yet another opportunity to pull away from the drop zone.
Rotherham, who sit directly below them in the final relegation birth, are only three points worse off. More crucial still are the Millers’ four games in hand, as well as their vastly superior goal difference.
Post-match, Karanka exuded all the hallmarks of a man who looked powerless to arrest the club’s slide, punctuating monotone responses with a series of sighs and shrugs.
“It’s difficult as a coach to try to work every day, every week, preparing training sessions, preparing videos, preparing motivation meetings,” he said. “Then we arrive at the pitch – same story. Missing chances, making individual mistakes.
“I don’t think I can take something positive from the game today.”
There are few positives to take from Karanka’s reign as a whole, let alone his final match in charge.
Initially, supporters were willing to withstand Karanka’s notoriously stultifying style of play so long as it yielded results. He started out reasonably enough, scraping an opening day win over Brentford, before earning three successive draws against Swansea, Rotherham, and Stoke.
Though relatively solid defensively, scoring goals from open play appeared almost impossible. It took Blues roughly 12 hours of football (or eight games into the Championship campaign) to register a goal that hadn’t come from the penalty spot or a set-piece.
As is often the case, patience wears very thin, very quickly, when a defensive style of play fails to regularly put points on the board.
So it panned out this season, with the occasional back-to-back win enveloped by a series of draws and defeats. Only Wycombe Wanderers have won fewer games than Birmingham this season.
If Karanka’s style of play gradually alienated the fanbase, then his aloofness alienated the playing staff.
In an interview following a 4-0 thumping at the hands of Derby County in December, Karanka revealed he didn’t even acknowledge the players after the full-time whistle. “I didn’t see them and I don’t want to see them,” he fumed.
Since then, his side has mustered only three wins in 14 games, as even the basics became too much to ask. Encouraging displays against Norwich and QPR provided a dim ray of hope, but one point from their previous three games saw Blues return to type as the players’ morale was eroded to a nib.
Often, a lack of belief amongst a team of footballers belies a lack of effort, and it was nowhere better exemplified than in the Spaniard’s final game in charge.
It wasn’t that the home side couldn’t be bothered against their incalculably more aggressive opponents – rather, their perceived lack of effort was simply a symptom of their shattered confidence, which Karanka failed to inspire throughout his team. He leaves the club one place and three points above the relegation zone.
After starting positively with a vital win against Reading, it is new manager Lee Bowyer’s task to haul Birmingham over the line as the finishing straight beckons. All three of their next games (against Watford, Swansea, and Brentford) are against sides vying for promotion to the top-flight.
Third-tier football has not been a fixture at St Andrew’s since 1995. But with the club nudging closer and closer to League One with every campaign, supporters could hardly argue that their demotion was not both timely and deserved.
Feature image: Twitter – @BCFC
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