Birmingham’s blues in front of goal continue after Coventry stalemate

It was a rather dull affair at St. Andrews on Friday night for a fixture that had received plenty of anticipation before kick-off.

The intriguing storyline of tenants hosting their landlords made the prospect game of the game thrilling, but the action on the pitch was anything but.

After a first half of few chances for either side, Aitor Karanka’s Blues stepped up the pace and created some decent chances; most of which fell for Lukas Jutkiewicz.

However, the English striker couldn’t put the ball past the Coventry goalkeeper Marko Marosi, who had a decent evening.

Blues’ talisman had two great opportunities that were carbon copies of one another. A cross from deep that the 31-year-old did well to meet, but couldn’t steer beyond Coventry’s Slovakian ‘keeper.

Those missed efforts summed up the West Midlands side’s campaign thus far. 

With just nine goals scored in 12 Championship games, Karanka’s side are the joint-third lowest goalscorers in the division. 

Thankfully for them, they haven’t been woeful defensively, conceding 11 so far this term, giving them a comfortable mid-table position. 

However, they’re currently walking on a tightrope. That defence could easily become unstuck in the next few and then Birmingham will have to face the prospect of another relegation battle.

If you look at most of Birmingham’s results this season, they could easily be mistaken for binary code; there have been plenty of 1-0s, 0-0s and 1-1s. 

They’ve proved hard to beat in most games this campaign, but at the same time have failed to offer significant quality in the final third.

Blues have only scored more than one goal in a single game twice this season, in their 2-1 wins over Preston and Huddersfield respectively. What’s more, they’ve failed to score in five of their 12 league games, almost half.

Birmingham currently have a ‘be hard to beat’ mentality which, for now, seems to be working. They’ve managed to keep a handful of clean sheets and are yet to be on the wrong end of a significant beating.

This, however, is a risky move because if their goalscoring woes continue, and the defence starts to become slightly leggy, Birmingham will lose games and find themselves in another relegation battle.

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