Blues 1-0 Blackburn Rovers

Line-ups

One change. Alfie Chang replaces Juninho Bacuna, who is benched having returned from international duty on Friday. Harlee Dean and Jobe Bellingham return to the squad after injury. Emmanuel Longelo and Jordan Graham are out.

Game

This turned into an open affair quite quickly with Blackburn dominating the ball and Blues looking to break quick in transition.

The visitors had the early running but only had a couple of set-pieces and a tame Sam Gallagher header to show for it. George Hall sprung to life for the first big action point, beating three players over 60 yards before finding Tahith Chong, who teed up Lukas Jutkiewicz for a cross that his a defender, post and goalkreper but stayed out. Chong and Jutkiewicz linked up again shortly after, the former firing wide when he ought to have hit the target.

Gallagher headed over a near post corner. Later, a free-flowing move set Ryan Hedges away but he fluffed the final decision. At the other end, Jutkiewicz came close twice, first with a left-footed snapshot that fell just wide of the far post and the other a powerful effort straight at Pears after more good work from Hall.

Blackburn were the better side in the latter stages. Sammy Szmodics fired over and he was involved with Thyrys Dolan to set up Hedges who was denied by John Ruddy. Hayden Carter had a take effort at goal before Reda Khadra found Chong to do similar.

Blackburn started the second half as they finished the first. Hedges came close with an effort from a short corner and Joe Rankin-Costello couldn't find the target from a left-wing cross under pressure.

Blues took the lead around the hour mark. A corner was cleared as far as Maxime Colin who disobeyed calls to shoot to find Khadra who drove towards the box and fired into the bottom corner.

Little happened for a while after the goal. Brereton couldn't head on target at the back post. He later did brilliantly to find fellow substitute Bradley Dack but Ruddy stood tall again. Ruddy then produced his best and worst moment of the game, failing to hold a tame Lewis Travis effort before reacting brilliantly to stop the rebound. Gallagher headed wide Callum Brittain's cross in the final seconds as Blues held on for victory.

Tactics

Both sides lined up in 4-2-3-1 shapes.

Blackburn were the dominant side in possession here and their style was again different to the norm.

In deep possession, their centre-backs would take the ball. The full-backs would step infield along deep-lying midfielder Tyler Morton and the 8's would take their place, making it something of a 2-5-3 in build-up. From there, it was all about the wide overload. Blackburn tried to play everything towards goal and when the opportunity arose, Gallagher would drop off the front and play first time passes in behind him to a runner - as early as the fifth minute, Trusty was marking Rankin-Costello on the edge of the box.

Blues needed a lot of communication to deal with this. After all, a man-to-man system would have had Khadra and Chong defending runners in behind their defence - not ideal when the plan is to counter quickly with their pace. Men had to be passed on and tracked and distances had to be tight. Chong and Khadra would often find themselves marking opposition CM's and Chang and Bielik marking full-backs. There were times where full-backs were tasked with stepping on, Roberts and Long dealing with midfield runners in wide positions and defensive midfielders acting as centre-backs. Only Jutkiewicz and Hall had set roles to begin with.

When Blues did nick possession, the aim was to set the trio of attacking midfielders away quickly. The first pass was played forward, either into feet or clipped into space so that the trio could drive at the heart of Blackburn. With the full-backs pushed on infield, Chong and Khadra often had space to work in while Hall regularly got himself on the wrong side of Morton.

In general possession, Blues would almost becoming a 3-4-3, Roberts receiving the ball in a wide position, Colin stepping on and Khadra wide on the other flank. The preference was to avoid pockets and look for width with Roberts and Bielik asked to play forward and look for switches to the other flank.

After Blues started to get on top and defend the early phase, Blackburn started rotating Morton and Travis for a period, just to give Hall and others something to think about.

Blues' difficulties pressing the full-backs caused problems late in the first half. Colin started stepping off and avoiding getting close to Dolan after a couple of 1-2's between he, Pickering and Szmodics set Dolan behind him. However, this led to Blackburn playing out easier.

Subs were like-for-like until the final minutes when Dean, Bellingham and Jordan James replaced Hall, Chong and Chang. Blues moved to 5-4-1, Bacuna and Bellingham flanking James and Bielik with Dean in the centre of the back five.

Players

George Hall. The boy is good. Quick. Brave on the ball. Gets forward. Can beat people.

Chong wasn't the sharpest defensively but was Blues' best outlet throughout and dangerous going forward. Chang was tough in midfield. Roberts wasn't pretty in possession but he didn't lose a battle defensively.

Khadra. He was probably the poorest player on the pitch, something even Eustace joked about post-match, but he provides an X Factor few have in the Blues side and it won us the game. His replacement, Bacuna, didn't impress.

I really like the boy Rankin-Costello for Blackburn. Good on the ball, picks up awkward positions, gets forward, on the front foot. Good player.

Anything of note?

Reda Khadra being booed. Seemed odd for a player who had a semi-decent loan spell. Fair to say it affected him but he got the final say.

John Ruddy. I like him. Bacuna came on and wasn't great. It was summed up by the Curaçao international beating one man, then knocking it out of play, getting involved with Carter on the touchline and leaving Brittain free to deliver a cross in the final seconds that was headed wide. The camera cut to him screaming "f*****g tell him" to the bench. At the final whistle, he walked to Bacuna, who was clearly prepared to be told off and already half-apologising with a smile on his face. As players clapped fans, Ruddy was seen discussing the incident with a member of the coaching staff, pointing to where it happened. That man lives for this and he's setting standards.

Conclusions

Another period of no game and another game Blues have performed well in, had a clear tactical plan and got the result. John Eustace and his staff can clearly coach.

Blues have now matched last season's points total with seven games to play and sit 16th in the league table, a phenomenal achievement all things considered.

And I have to talk about George Hall. That boy is special and he's going to have a very good career. I acknowledge that he's probably going to be sold this summer. A year left on his deal. He's PL bound. But I would love to see him stay another year, play 40 games, score 10 goals and then make the move as a player clearly ready for it.