This 'transitional period' nonsense is just another dressing up of 'the journey' or the 'three/five year plan'. Never any ambitions for now, just in the distant future. The only thing we're transitioning into is a lower table Championship team - optimistically - or more realistically a League 1 team. There is absolutely zero evidence to suggest a bunch of players brought in from average to poor teams in leagues incomparable to the Championship are going to transition us into something better. At least when Mowbray and JDT were talking about it, their signings suggested the possibility was there even if reality always came along to bite us on the arse in the end. Eustace was the only manager in recent times who wanted to plan for the now, and his ambitions were swiftly wrecked by those above him. Not only that, but his desire to bring in players he believed could push us forward now as opposed to some magical time in the future was derided as "bringing in Eustace's mates" or "lacking resale value", as if we're a club who doesn't consistently allow valuable players to either leave for nothing or well below their true value. Venky's had a somewhat canny operator in Waggott who was willing and able to keep us bobbing along in the Championship. Zero ambition beyond that, but it was a target he could meet. I don't think the Pasha/Gestede combo have that same ability, and unless they get an experienced CEO in very quickly we could be looking at 2016/17 all over again.

Ismael said it was a good away performance. Id hate to see a bad one.

Sammy says hi.

He was brought in by Rudy from the scrap heap and now has 3 years still on his contract. Big Val will tow the party line a bit longer IMO.

No quality in the final 3rd according to Ismael. No change there then. Been like that for several seasons!

DONT TELL RUDY!

Make it 2.5 and you have a deal.

Wasn’t having a go at you pal, thankfully you understood what I meant buddy.

Ismael “we were not that dangerous, I expected it” brilliant, tells you all you need to know. Essentially, the manager himself doesn’t believe in the team.

Strewth, that would be generous !

I got same vibe. Shades of JDT in that interview. Didn't sound happy about the window at all, resigned to Travis going.

can we just give everyone around a 5.5 and be done

I’m not wanting him replaced I think he’s clocked out. So I’d rather someone who committed

I finally got around to watching the Birmingham promotional series on Prime. It was a decent fluff piece, but not much more than that. The Sunderland doc was much better and more detailed. I thought the emphasis on Birmingham being a 'cursed' club was a bit exaggerated. I'm sure there are a lot of uncursed clubs who wouldn't have minded spending most of the 2000s in the PL. I get it makes for a better story to make out Brum are this massive club who had been under a brutal curse before Brady and Wagner came along, though. They zoomed through the first season in a single episode. In a serious documentary that would have spanned two, if not three episodes. I get why they did it - the aim was to promote Brady and Wagner in a good light, so they wanted to get the rocky start out of the way quickly. Still, I thought it was lacking. Little insight from either of them on why they sacked Eustace nor any real contrition beyond Brady admitting they made too many changes too soon. No real insight as to why they chose Rooney. No real insight into what it was specifically that caused Birmingham to struggle under Rooney, beyond Brady briefly mentioning he didn't like Rooney's work ethic. Thought Rooney came across as really awkward when in Brady and Wagner's presence. They completely ignored Mowbray's hiring, as far as I recall it wasn't even mentioned. If you didn't know any better you'd assume they just didn't have a manager after Rooney was sacked. I know Mowbray wasn't there long due to his unexpected health issue, and maybe they glossed over the entire thing out of respect for that, but I was still surprised it wasn't brought up that he was there at all. The League 1 part wasn't hugely interesting due to Brum's eventual domination of the league. They made a big deal of the brief wobble they had, but then just skipped ahead because, well, there wasn't much to say. They tried to spin it as a monumental achievement, but with the amount they spent it would have been one of the biggest sporting failures of all time not to go up. Their spend was 30x the next closest team - and whilst they did mention the spending, I don't think it highlighted just how egregious it was in comparison to the other teams in the division or indeed in comparison to any historical spending in that division. Regardless, you can't doubt Wagner and Brady's commitment to the club. They're all in, at the moment at least, and that was obvious. It remains to be seen for how long they retain their interest if further success doesn't follow quickly. Will they be so passionate if in two or three seasons Birmingham are still a Championship club? We'll see.

POTM voting is live now in our Match Centre https://www.brfcs.com/football/match/1386555/west-brom-blackburn

Spending money is no guarantee of success but not spending much money guarantees a decline in fortunes.

That would be more than a plan than we deployed. Simply nothing going forward, zero creativity and no chances created. Yuki is far too slow and lack the strength and ability to be a loan striker and Big Mak just doesn’t ever look like scoring goals and yet, we seem to have no plan to add to strikers. If you don’t score goals, we won’t win football matches.

I would say at least half of those lads out there looked like they were well below championship standard. The squad as a whole lacks creativity and goal scoring ability. Some posters argue for the inclusion of Cantwell but creativity has to come from various channels, not just one individual. We don’t have creativity anywhere. It’s a real worry. Just bear in mind though that we’re right not to spend cash on players because it doesn’t guarantee success. 😏 Tossers.

Send it to the Daily Mail, they’ll write any shite they can get their hands on! 99.9% of the time it’s complete bollocks!

I don't disagree. Like many though, they're obviously unsettled by the change in manager and behind the scenes goings on. Regardless of all that, you can only have players who are 100% playing, especially in CM.

Thought Travis and tronstad were brilliant together last season and it was when 1 was injured shit hit the fan.

It didn’t look like it today. It was all “ hit and hope “.

The full team have limitations going off today’s performance, but I’d much rather have our captain there who we know will be up for the fight instead of another cheap foreigner. Crazy wanting him replaced with a cheap untried geezer from abroad. And looking at what we had out today, I don’t trust these lot to bring anyone decent in.

To be honest, I'd seen enough today from both of them to know you can't have both of them in centre midfield all season if they're not both fully commited. If they're not 100% in it then they need fucking off ASAP and get someone in with more of a point to prove.

Did we have a plan of attack.