One step closer to Wembley and £45,000 banked as Birmingham City deliver brutal slap-down

One step closer to Wembley and £45,000 banked as Birmingham City deliver brutal slap-down

Birmingham City crushed Fulham under-21s to advance to the Bristol Street Motors Trophy knockout stages. Brian Dick talks about the game’s key talking topics.

For the majority of the season, there was a general belief in Birmingham City that someone would get spanked at some point. It came last night when Fulham’s Under-21 team was brutally dismissed 7-1.

Although it may have been a more forceful statement if it had been made in League One, it is perhaps not shocking that it won the Bristol Street Motors Trophy. Let’s not be too critical. Three decades have passed since the Magnificent Seven occurred in St Andrew’s.

Thanks to goals from Alfie May, Keshi Anderson, and Lyndon Dykes as well as braces from Jay Stansfield and Ayumu Yokoyama, Chris Davies’ team advanced to the competition’s knockout stages.

A yawning gap

Blues started well but for probably 50 minutes they were involved in a genuine contest against a motivated and at times dangerous Fulham team.

With their array of senior professionals the hosts always looked like they could blow the doors off the match – but they also looked like they could cough up an error that would gift their young opponents a foothold.

All four defenders conceded possession in their defensive third, many of them stood by and watched Martial Godo pick his way across the penalty area before beating Bailey Peacock-Farrell.

Fulham came out the brighter of the two sides at the start of the second period, forced a corner and a low save out of Peacock-Farrell and might well have fashioned a way back into proceedings.

Where their wheels fell off was after the third goal, when Yokoyama clattered his first Blues goal past Alex Borto. As Blues’ belief grew, Fulham’s ebbed away and by the end they looked every inch eleven development players, rather than a development team.

All four defenders conceded possession in their defensive third, many of them stood by and watched Martial Godo pick his way across the penalty area before beating Bailey Peacock-Farrell.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Fulham was the more impressive of the two teams. They forced a corner and a low save from Peacock-Farrell and might have easily re-entered the game.

After the third goal, when Yokoyama clattered his first Blues goal past Alex Borto, they lost their bearings. Fulham’s waned as Blues’ confidence increased, and by the conclusion, they were more like eleventh-grade development players than a development squad.

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