It would be very easy for me to start this blog with something trite, like the first few lines of “If” by Rudyard Kipling, but I didn’t want to patronise you, the reader. As many will know, I try to be an optimist and in the face of a five-nil thumping, it’s hard to be that way. However, unlike many it seems I do not believe all is lost. Not just yet, anyway.

I’m not going to comment on the game. I’ve not seen any of it, nor listened to it (I was otherwise engaged shopping with Mrs Almajir), and it would be unfair of me to make any assumptions based on second hand reports. I have read that we were awful, and that a cricket score wouldn’t have flattered Manchester United. I have no doubt that is true, but without seeing the game I can’t say for sure that I agree with it.

However, this wasn’t a game I believed we’d get anything out of. My prediction pre-match on twitter was “we’ll be lucky to get nil”. Whilst losing by five has damaged our goal difference badly, we’re still currently outside the relegation zone. We’ve got some easier games to come up, and we can get back into the swing of things hopefully on Wednesday. The stats weren’t with us for the Manchester United game; we haven’t scored at Old Trafford in open play in my lifetime, and with our current profligacy in attack we weren’t likely to score anything any time soon. Thus this was a game I’d marked down as no chance, and I hoped we wouldn’t get too hurt.

So now we’re nine days until the end of the transfer window; with a team in the dumps, a manager frustrated by lack of transfer activity and owners getting fidgety about stories in the press. Fans are filling messageboards online with bile, depression and ugly rhetoric as their frustration boils over. It appears that the four horseman of the apocalypse have saddled up and are currently taking residence at St Andrews, ready to bring the end of the world. It doesn’t have to be like that.

We’re potentially ninety minutes away from our first major final in ten years. Yes, a one goal deficit may be hard to overturn but we have the chance to do that. I don’t know if we can do it, but I know if we DO do it, things might appear much brighter for Birmingham City fans. A trip to Wembley, a date with destiny and maybe the chance to end the season with silverware will give the whole club a lift at a time when the black clouds of depression hang over Small Heath.

In addition to this, despite having been beaten by a massively superior Arsenal, a massively superior Manchester United, and having lost two games to inclement weather over the Christmas period, we’re still not in the bottom three. Yes, we’re clinging on to seventeenth but we’re still in control of our own destiny. We do have the players that can get us out of the mess we’re in; we just need to believe as fans and believe as a team that we can do it. I’ve noticed that when we concede recently heads drop off and on the pitch, and it’s that negativity that is killing us; not the formation.

I’m of the belief we can still bring someone in the before the end of the window; whilst I think Peter Pannu was misguided in his statement to the Birmingham Mail regarding speculation about the ownership of the club, I do believe that he and the rest of the board have the club’s best interests at heart; and I’m hopeful that they can bring someone in who can do a job for us for the rest of this season.

I know we’ve not hit the giddy heights of last season, and I know it’s been a struggle to get behind the team because we’ve been so dour at times this season, but the team need us the fans. A fired up crowd on Wednesday night from the off could help sweep us to Wembley; and then with the chance of domestic silverware on the horizon (and the subsequent trip to Europe) we might just become a more attractive prospect for players to join. As Journey sang, “Don’t Stop Believing”.

Tags: Manchester United, Positivity