Birmingham City positives through pre-season and latest captaincy situation discussed

A look at Blues so far this pre-season.

Transcript

00:00Charlie, starting with Birmingham City, attendance at the pre-season game, quite a new look,

00:07Blues side obviously with a massive season ahead. What could you tell us? Obviously pre-season

00:13can be the thing where you can't find much about, but there can be some positive signs

00:18at times. What was your take from being around St Andrews?

00:22It was really good to be back full stop at St Andrews. The last time I was there, of

00:27course, they were relegated against Norwich City. They won that day, but then they went

00:31down. It was a really strange feeling and just devastation, but also hope in a weird

00:35sense for the future because of the win and because people were thinking, OK, maybe we

00:40should just accept this. At least we'll be starting to win games next season. Pre-season

00:44has started well. The Paderborn defeat, 5-0, you're thinking, oh dear, what's going to

00:49happen here? Things go even more downhill, but then beating Solihull and now, of course,

00:54beating Rangers. I don't think many people would have expected that. I know it's pre-season

00:58and we can see all sorts of bizarre results. I think Manchester United failed to beat some

01:03sort of Norwegian second tier team or something like that and Chelsea drew to Wrexham, so

01:07you can't read into it that much, but the passion shone. It was a strong line-up from

01:11Birmingham, a pretty strong line-up from Rangers, and that first half in particular was really

01:16promising. The way that the players were zipping the ball around from defence and Dion Sanderson

01:20stepping into midfield. Ethan Laird getting high up the pitch, seeing new signings in

01:25action. Emile Hansen on the left wing, they do lots of cross-field passes to him. The

01:29way he touched the ball down and run at defenders was really exciting. Alfie May, the new scorer

01:34at the new signing, getting on the score sheet as well from an Ethan Laird cross. Ethan Laird

01:39was on the floor on his back and he somehow still managed to flick it back to May to score

01:43that goal. Obviously, Rangers got back into it in the second half a little bit and Blues

01:47didn't look quite as strong when they made all 11 substitutions, but that's to be expected.

01:51I think all in all, the atmosphere was great. 19,000 fans there in attendance and over 7,000

01:57of them were Rangers fans, which is an incredible turnout. A very good day at the office for them.

02:03What's the captain situation going into this new season? Obviously,

02:08we've spoken before and said you need leaders, you need players who are going to dig you out

02:12of these tough games in League One. What's the latest you can tell us on that situation?

02:18It's a bit of a complex one, actually, because Dion Sanderson was the captain

02:21last season, right up until the end when there were alleged drunk driving offences. In the end,

02:27Birmingham decided to strip him of the captaincy for the last couple of games of the season and

02:31then heading into pre-season, it was all a bit uncertain. He's apologised to the fans and he

02:36promises that he's going to learn from that and hopefully step up his behaviour. In the initial

02:42pre-season games, we've seen Christian Bielik as the captain. I asked Chris Davies after the

02:47Rangers game, what is the situation? He said that it's actually undersized at the moment

02:52and he'll make that decision in the next week. It'll be an official club statement, I believe,

02:57or Chris Davies himself will put out a statement to announce who the captain will be. It'll be

03:01interesting. Sanderson, I think, still has a chance because he has been asking for forgiveness

03:06and he's worked incredibly hard in training, is what Davies has said. There is a chance there,

03:11but I think Bielik as well also stands a good chance.