Blues began life back in The Championship with a win, but made hard work of it and the performance will certainly have left plenty of questions to ponder for Steve Bruce and his management team. It wasn't all bad news though, as there were certainly some positives to take out of the game too.
Blues started like a team who'd just been relegated and had a lot of expectation heaped on them against a team who'd just been promoted and were in a 'nothing to lose' game, which was irnoic really, given that's exactly what the situation was. Colchester sat back and waited for Blues to break them down and Blues (stop me if you've heard this one before...) struggled to break them down.
In fairness to Colchester, they were neat and tidy and Geraint Williams had them well organised. Greg Halford and Wayne Brown were solid at the back as they were during their promotion season and Kemal Izzet in midfield had so much energy it looked like he'd stolen some from his brother. I'd guess that he did this approximately two years ago, just after his once box-to-box midfielder of a brother, Muzzy, signed for a certain West Midlands club.
Blues did gradually grow into the game, though they struggled to get Dunn and Johnson into too many threatening positions. Pleasingly Forssell and Campbell up front looked as sharp as quite sharp knives, but they were mainly having to create opportunities themselves due to the lack of any real service.
After Forssell had gone close twice (once with a close range shot into the side netting and once with a typical shimmy and drive across the face of goal) and Dunn had also hit the side netting with a free-kick, Blues did take the lead on 30 minutes. Danns and Dunn tried a clever short corner (won by some good, lively, intelligent play by Campbell) including Matt Sadler, and, this being Blues, it failed. However, Colchester cleared 'a la Blues' straight to Danns on the edge of the area, and he found N'Gotty in space. The 6'3" man-monster then clipped a delightful left-foot cross into the six yard box, and Campbell was on hand to nip in behind the defence and flick a header past ex-Bolton 'keeper Aidan Davidson. Campbell took the goal well, with the confidence of someone who's scored about 352 goals in pre-season, but credit too must go to N'Gotty whose pitching wedge-esque cross was quite sublime.
Blues then eased themselves into the game more and took control either side of half-time. They finished the first half well and then came out in the second half and continued to take the game to Colchester, with Dunn now more heavily involved and Danns beginning to take a grip on the midfield. Stephen Clemence, on the other hand, struggled somewhat. Danns though is an interesting character. Well, I have no idea about his character, but he's an interesting player. His 'natural' position as the game goes on appears to be fairly deep in the midfield, and he was almost alongside Clemence in front of the back four at times. However, he's deceptively quick at joining in with attacks. He does seem to get up in support a lot quicker than you'd expect, from a fairly deep midfield role. As the game progressed he became more comfortable on the ball and can be very pleased with his first competitive appearance in a blue shirt - apart from the Blackburn and Colchester blue shirts that he's worn before, that is.
Another impressive aspect of the Blues team generally was the back five. There were a couple of early scares, but once settled, messrs Taylor, Kelly, N'Gotty, Tebily and Sadler looked good... except on 51 minutes when they decided to revert to 'comedy defending' that they may have seen from their predecessors on reviews of last season - it was really funny stuff, apart from the fact that Colchester equalised. Basically, there was a long ball into the area and just about everyone tried to clear it, but failed, and it kept bobbling about. (Excuse the rather undescriptive recital of events, but I only saw it once, and couldn't make heads nor tails of what was going on - Blues were rubbish at defending it though.) Eventually the ball dropped to Richard Garcia - formerly of West Ham - and he spanked the ball into the roof of the net from close range to send the travelling thousands (or thousand and a couple of hundred) wild as they celebrated their first ever goal at this level. Haha... poxy little club.
Anyway, enough patronising of the visitors, as things started to get a little worse for Blues. Colchester began to sense that 'hmmm... actually Birmingham are now in this division because they were crap, so maybe they still are a bit crap?' and began to put some pressure on. Blues responded by throwing on Larsson and Bendtner for the disappointing Clemence and the impressive Campbell. Campbell appeared to limp off, but I suspect he was told to do that so it would explain why we were taking our goalscorer off. Basically he used to work in a warehouse, so it's easier to take him off than anyone else, despite the fact he'd been our liveliest player and only goalscorer. If he was injured though, I take it all back. Five minutes later, Blues' big summer signing and new fourth choice striker (hmmm...?) Cameron Jerome also came on to replace Mikael Forssell.
Now, I don't know if it was the fact that he was fed up that he was our 'big summer signing' and had just given a lovely interview to The Guardian on the eve of the season telling them what he was going to do this season, before being demoted behind Forssell, Campbell and Bendtner, but Jerome came on like a man possessed - a man possessed by some kind of really quick, powerful, energetic ghost. He chased down everything, tackled anything and looked a real meance for about 4 minutes, until he was sent off. As Jerome was taking on the entire Colchester team on his own, his flailing arm appeared to catch Karl Duguid. To me, it wasn't a sending off, but then again I wasn't the referee, so my opinion was a long way below referee Keith Stroud's in the 'important opinions' pecking order. He thought it was, and hence the red card was brandished at Jerome, making it the second red thing brandished at him following the red rag that had clearly been shoved in his face before he came on to wind him up so much. It was a positive 4 minutes though - he looked quick and scary. Just a pity we probably won't see him until September now because of his suspension.
Now then, Blues are drawing 1-1 and are down to ten men with 20 minutes to go - we all know what 'old Blues' would have done... settled for the point! This is 'new Blues' though and seemed to make them determined to get a winner. Larsson who played in a midfield three with Danns and Johnson (Dunn joined Bendter up front) following Jerome's dismissal floated a glorious ball wide to Stephen Kelly who reached the by-line. (Yes, you read it correctly - a ten man Blues team who should have been holding on for a point had a full-back reaching the opposition by-line. Whatever next?! Winning two games in a row!?). Kelly found Bendtner inside the area, and the highly-rated striker showed exactly why he's a highly-rated striker by making a little bit of room for himsels and finishing as coolly as an Ice Pop on a hot summer's day.
Blues then threw Dunn back into midfield to make a 4-4-1 formation and held on for the win. Some stupid people around me criticised them for this, but it was perfectly acceptable really - you'd managed to take the lead with only ten men, so why risk that trying to make it 3-1? (I know I'm often sarcastic, but I'm not being sarcastic there, I mean it). So, that was that, despite some late Colchester pressure, Blues held on for the three points.
So, a few final points - firstly on the down side... Blues' midfield still isolated the front two too much. There were too many occasions when Forssell and Campbell (and their subsequent replacements) didn't have enough support, and were left to do too much on their own, which, in fairness, all the strikers (4-minute man excepted as he didn't have chance) did pretty well. The gap between the midfield and forwards needs to be filled in somehow when Blues attack though. Either Danns needs to learn to run even faster, or the style of play needs to be altered slightly, either through instructions or personnel. Personally, playing Nafti alongside Danns would help in my mind, as Nafti is more disciplined than a really well-behaved Doberman, and would allow Danns to completely forget defensive duties, whereas I don't think he gets that peace of mind with Clemence.
On the plus side though, Blues did create chances, could have scored more goals, and - crazy, I know - look like they've got a bunch of threatening strikers. Given that most people thought Forssell and Jerome would start the game, the goals came from the third and fourth choice strikers, which was nice. Campbell looked very lively, as did Forssell, and in Bendtner it looks as though Blues have got hold of a young superstar - if only for a brief period of time. Larsson too looked a class act, and didn't hold back in telling Dunn what he thought of him on one occasion when Dunn failed to pick him out with a pass, which shows he's keen. Those were all positive signs. Even Dunn, who - by his own standards - was fairly quiet, looked like he could create things at times. It was a typical Dunn performance in some respects - for 85 minutes he looked a bit like a fat, unfit player who couldn't get involved in the game, but for 5 minutes he looked really threatening and things went through him. Everyone knows that if you can get 90 minutes out of him, he's worth picking for the 5 minutes in which he creates things - well, certainly in home games against teams like Colchester. He wasn't at his best today, but he looked ok, will get better and will create more. He may be a luxury in games such as Sunderland away (up next) though. Sadler and Danns also deserve special mentions for excellent games, whilst N'Gotty, Tebily and Kelly were all solid.
So, that was that, the first game back for Blues in their loan spell to The Championship, and they picked up three points. It wasn't convincing, and at times it was shaky, but it was nowhere near as bad as the slow, dull, boring, meaningless dross churned out last season and there were plenty of positives to be had. Blues showed that they do now have players capable of producing some quicker, better football, and they do have some good, young, talented players, even if they do belong to Arsenal. Also, would 'old Blues' with all their unfit, old, dying players have been able to actually take the lead with diminished numbers, and then hold on? I think not. I'm not saying it was great - far from it - but it's a long season, and it's a decent "7 out of 10" start.
It's a cliche, but at the end of the day, all you want from the first game of the season against potential 'banana skin' opponents is three points, and Blues got that. Well, maybe that's not a cliche, but it should be.