Blues started pretty miserably, once again. Crystal Palace were by far the better team early on, combining young hungry players such as Jobi McAnuff (who will be star - mark my words), Ben Watson and Tom Soares with some decent moves too. Blues now have the young hungry players, but the decent moves were nowhere to be seen. Still, one step at a time and all that. Blues played with absolutely no purpose whatsoever during the opening exchanges and were duly made to pay for this when McAnuff opened the scoring for Palace after 11 minutes. He cut inside from the left, was afforded far too much room, struck a shot with his right foot which may not even have troubled Maik Taylor until a wicked deflection wrong-footed the Blues 'keeper who was left helpless as the Palace fans sang 'we are top of the league!' - perhaps they'd like to have another look at the league table now...?
Blues gradually got a grip on the game, mainly thanks to Nafti and Johnson really taking control of the centre of midfield and starting to play some neat short passes. This got Dunn into the game more, and in turn meant that he was able to link up with McSheffrey who was taking up some very bright positions drifting in from the left. Shortly after Gabor Kiraly - of stupid trousers fame - made a quite sensational safe to deny Jaidi, Blues were on level terms. During a spell of pressure the ball looped out to Nafti on the edge of the area. The Tunisian international ignored 20,000 cries of 'SHOOT!!!' and took the ball down before sliding a superb through ball to Bendtner who in turn "gave Kiraly the eyes", as it's trendy to say, and tucked the ball home neatly.
Kiraly was on hand again to deny McSheffrey a debut goal as Blues really took charge during the midway stage of the first half. However, as half-time approached Blues failed to capitalise on all their possession, let Palace back into it a little bit, and Taylor was forced to claw the ball away from the top corner to deny Jaidi's attempt to emulate that great Jamie Pollock own goal from his Manchester City days.
Anyway, it was the second half when things got interesting and there was some real controversy. After the break Blues were possibly the better team, though Palace still looked a threat on the break. Both teams opened up a little, and proceedings began to oscillate wildly. As Blues toiled trying to break Palace down and nick a crucial goal, substitutions inevitably came into play, and this is where it all kicked off.
Right, the first Blues substitute limbered up, and it was Sebastian Larsson - so, who would come off? To me (and, I suspect, the majority of the crowd) there was only really two candidates given the way Blues were pushing forward and searching for the win - either David Dunn (because of his fitness issues) or Damien Johnson (because although he'd been much better than in previous games this season, he'd given the ball away once or twice in the second half, and because in the 'holding midfielder' role Mehdi Nafti had excelled). So, who did Bruce replace? Nafti, of course. This led to an audible confused mumble from the home fans, but it passed.
So, the second substitute to come on was Neil Danns. Now, here I'd have thought once again that Dunn and Johnson were candidates to go off, but this time goalscorer and tallest forward player (Blues had played a fair few long balls at times) Nicklas Bendtner was replaced leaving just DJ Campbell as a recognised striker on the pitch. This change was greeted by boos from the Blues fans.
(Excuse the lack of reporting on the match at this point, but it was huff and puff, to and fro football as before.)
So, finally the third substitute - Mikael Forssell - stripped off, and on this occasion Damien Johnson's number 22 was shown on the electronic board thing that baffles all fourth officials. This substitution led to a chorus of cheers from the Blues fans. There is no doubt that this was aimed at Johnson, and anyone saying otherwise is kidding themselves. Upon hearing this, Johnson threw his captain's armband to the turf, returned to the bench, being booed as he did so. Once at the bench, he took off his shirt, jogged down the touchline (still being booed) towards the tunnel, and as he approached the tunnel, he threw his shirt onto the pitch in disgust. Seconds after he had disappeared from the arena, a chorus of 'Damien Johnson, what a w****r' started amongst Blues fans.
So, what do I make of that? Firstly, let me state that I think it's disgraceful in various respects - on the part of Johnson and the fans in some ways. Firstly Johnson should quite simply not have done it. He didn't throw his armband down in disgust at being substituted - he did it following the ironic cheers which were aimed at him. Now, this is wrong, but, in the heat of the moment and given his fiery nature, it is perhaps understandable and forgivable. The confusing aspect is that the whole 'shirt throwing' incident was clearly not quite so 'in the heat of the moment'. By the time the shirt was thrown to the turf, Johnson had had about 45 seconds to weigh up his actions, and as a result, this was a little more calculated (he deliberately threw the shirt back onto the pitch). This has really made things difficult for Johnson, and there have to be question marks about his future at the club now. He will undoubtedly be stripped of the captaincy.
The fans too should be ashamed though, because regardless of his performances this season (as I've said, he actually wasn't so bad back in central midfield today) he did not deserve the treatment he got. The ironic cheers were pathetic, and just highlighted that Johnson is an easy target for those fans with short memories and axes to grind with Steve Bruce. As a footballer Johnson is limited, but he single-handedly gave Birmingham City Football Club a shred of dignity in a pathetic attempt to avoid relegation from the Premiership last season, and that shouldn't be forgotten. His actions were pathetic too, don't get me wrong, but he did not deserve that. He deserves any consequences he faces now - he was stupid - but he was only stupid in reaction to at least 8,000 - 10,000 people being braindead in the first place. Maybe the fans were caught up in the heat of the moment too, but it was stupidity all round on the part of everyone concerned.
But, do you know who I blame for the whole thing? Steve Bruce. His persistent selection of Johnson no matter what led to this, and his substitutions today effectively hung Johnson out to dry. Johnson should have been taken off when Nafti was - it's that simple. Had that happened, there would have been nowhere near the amount of ironic cheers that there was - if any. The same could be said of the second substitution. In ignoring Johnson during these first two substitutions, Bruce was effectively drawing attention to his decision to leave Johnson on the pitch. Everyone was now questioning why he was still out there. But to then bring him off with your final substitution was just giving the kid the rope to hang himself. Bruce had already been booed for his substitutions, and some of this booing may have revolved around Johnson remaining on the pitch. If he'd played the 90 minutes, people would have moaned afterwards, but wouldn't have had the opportunity for such a display of fickleness. As soon as his number went up on the board, that was it. Blues had been struggling to break Palace down, so the fans were getting frustrated by that. They were frustrated by Bruce's previous substitutions, and so here was the perfect opportunity to let off steam by taking it all out on Johnson. I'm not defending him - read above, I think he was stupid - but Bruce may as well have dressed him up in an orange boliersuit and got him to hold a sign saying 'TAKE OUT ALL YOUR FRUSTRATIONS ON ME!' the way he exposed Johnson.
And why is Johnson so exposed? Because of Bruce's insistence that he HAS to be in the team. Johnson's a decent enough player at this level, and should be involved, but if Larsson, Dunn, Forssell, Muamba, Bendtner, Danns, etc, etc can all be dropped to the bench, then so can Johnson. The squad's big enough. If Johnson was used like a normal player, he wouldn't be perceived as this evil villain, but as I say, he's not, and it exposes him. He's not great, but he's not bad, and as I said, people should not forget his efforts last season (and the seasons before that). The fans were stupid and then Johnson was stupider, but Bruce has created the situation over a lengthy period of time now, and the reason that the club's captain is now also the most-hated player at the club is down to Steve Bruce himself, I'm afraid. He needs to take some responsibility for what happened, as it's a hell of a difficult situation to manage now.
Anyway, was there a match going on? Oh yes, Crystal Palace or something? So, having sat here and criticised all of Bruce's substitutions, Blues then won the game in injury-time through a substitute in Seb Larsson. Dunn (who I've been saying should have been taken off) did superbly well and pulled the ball back across the face of goal for the young Swede to slide in and place the ball past Kiraly and to send the fans and the Blues bench wild. Dunn shouldn't have been on the pitch and the substitutions were wrong - it shows what I know, huh?
I'm finding it difficult to know what to think about this game. The Johnson thing is obviously a huge side-issue, but the fact is that Blues beat a team who hadn't dropped a point in their opening three games and will be at the right end of the table come May, and in doing so Blues now top the league. Can you really ask for any more than that? I think the problem is though that during the game, things still don't seem right. I'm not going to go on about the substitutions again, but there were also some scary moments for Blues who started poorly and didn't look impressive for periods of the game. In saying that, they did attack very well and with purpose at times, and now Jaidi's in alongside Bruno N'Gotty, for the main part they looked quite solid at the back.
In summary? I'm confused. We were good at times and poor at times. We're not playing well but we're top of the league. Our manager was booed and our captain was the subject of abuse and an insulting song, yet we won against a good side and we've got 10 points out of a possible 12. It's a mad world, as they'd say in Donnie Darko.