For Birmingham City, things are going from bad to worse, with the club now having two more injury concerns.
Birmingham City headed to neighbours Coventry City last night.
It was another crucial match for the under-fire Wayne Rooney and yet another defeat; it’s now been six defeats from nine for the Blues boss.
Once again, Birmingham City failed to really test the opposition, with Coventry City claiming a fairly routine win in the end.
Many expected to see some changes to the XI after last weekend’s disappointment vs Rotherham United, and we did see changes.
Dion Sanderson and Cody Drameh were left out and it looked as though they’d been dropped, but it turns out that Rooney has two fresh injury concerns.
Sanderson and Drameh join Birmingham City injury list
It’s becoming a common theme for Birmingham City.
Last season under John Eustace and now under Rooney, Blues don a lengthy injury list which only ever seems to grow.
Birmingham Live explained last night that club captain Sanderson ‘picked up a freak foot injury in the build-up to the match’ and that right-back Drameh sustained an ankle injury during Thursday’s training session.
Right-backs Drameh and Ethan Laird are now injured, with Sanderson, Kevin Long, Keshi Anderson, George Hall, Tyler Roberts, and Alfie Chang making up Blues’ current injury list.
Why so many injuries for Birmingham City?
There seems to be a quite deep-lying issue here.
It could be something to do with the pitch at St Andrew’s which the players obviously play half their games on, or it could be an issue with the training pitch.
It could be that both Eustace and Rooney trained the players hard and so injuries become prevalent, but it could be that Rooney’s style of play is much more intense and at a congested period in the season, players are starting to drop.
Sanderson had played every minute of every game up until last night and although his injury is apparently a freak one, he was bound to need a rest at some point.
And Drameh had played a lot of football too, having featured 15 times in the Championship this season.
With both Drameh and Laird now injured, it’s a real sucker punch for Rooney who’ll have to find a way of competing without an experienced first-team right-back for however long he needs to.
Times are certainly tough for Rooney and Birmingham City, who go up against Cardiff City in midweek.