Birmingham City positives in pre-season so far and a look at the current captaincy situation
A look at Birmingham City with their new boss and a number of new faces coming through the doors to encourage a memorable season in League One. A new captain is also on the cards, one that fans hope to see lift silverware at the end of the season.
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00:00The pre-season can be a thing where you can't find much about, but there can be some positive
00:08signs at times. What was your take from being around St Andrews?
00:13I was really good to be back full stop at St Andrews. The last time I was there, of
00:16course, they were relegated against Norwich City. They had won that day, but then they
00:20went down. It was a really strange feeling and just devastation, but also hope in a weird
00:25sense for the future because of the win. People were thinking, OK, maybe we should
00:30just accept this. At least we'll be starting to win games next season. The pre-season has
00:34started well. The Paderborn defeat 5-0, you're thinking, oh dear, what's going to happen
00:39here? Things go even more downhill, but then beating Solihull and now, of course, beating
00:44Rangers. I don't think many people would have expected that. I know it's pre-season and
00:49we can see all sorts of bizarre results. I think Manchester United failed to beat some
00:53sort of Norwegian second tier team or something like that, and Chelsea drew to Wrexham. So
00:57you can't read into it that much, but the passion shown, it was a strong line-up from
01:01Birmingham, a pretty strong line-up from Rangers. That first half in particular was really promising.
01:06The way that the players were zipping the ball around from defence and Dion Sanderson
01:10stepping into midfield. Ethan Laird getting high up the pitch, seeing new signings in
01:15action. Emil Hansen on the left wing, they do lots of cross-field passes to him. The
01:19way he touched the ball down and run at defenders was really exciting. Alfie May, the new scorer
01:24at the new signing, getting on the score sheet as well from an Ethan Laird cross. Ethan Laird
01:29was on the floor on his back and he somehow still managed to flick it back to May to score
01:33that goal. Obviously, Rangers got back into it in the second half a little bit and Blues
01:37didn't look quite as strong when they made all 11 substitutions, but that's to be expected.
01:41I think all in all, the atmosphere was great. 19,000 fans there in attendance and over 7,000
01:47of them were Rangers fans, which is an incredible turnout. A very good day at the office for them.
01:53What's the captain situation going into this new season? Obviously, we've spoke before
01:59and said you need leaders, you need players who are going to dig you out of these tough
02:02games in League One. What's the latest you can tell us on that situation?
02:08It's a bit of a complex one, actually, because Dion Sanderson was the captain last season,
02:13right up until the end, when there were alleged drink-driving offences. In the end,
02:17Birmingham decided to strip him of the captaincy for the last couple of games of the season and
02:21then heading into pre-season, it was all a bit uncertain. He's apologised to the fans and he
02:26promises that he's going to learn from that and hopefully step up his behaviour. In the initial
02:31pre-season games, we've seen Christian Bielik as the captain. So, I asked Chris Davies actually
02:37after the Rangers game, what is the situation? And he said that it's actually undersized at
02:41the moment and he'll make that decision in the next week, announce who the captain will be. So,
02:46it'll be interesting. Sanderson, I think, still has a chance because he has been asking for
02:51forgiveness and he's worked incredibly hard in training, is what Davies has said. So,
02:55there is a chance there, but I think Bielik as well also stands a good chance.