Birmingham City predicted XI vs Barnsley: Bowyer to make changes following Fulham hammering

Birmingham City will be looking to bounce back from their 6-2 defeat to Fulham when they take on bottom of the league Barnsley at St Andrew’s on Saturday.

The Blues are without a win in eight following their loss mid-week and there aren’t many better teams you could ask to face when tasked with reversing that torrid run of form.

Barnsley sit rock bottom of the Championship table with just two wins and 14 total points to their name. They’ve even been surpassed by Derby County who were hit with two separate nine point deductions during the early stages of the campaign.

The two sides drew 1-1 in the reverse fixture back in August but a draw does neither team any favours this time around.

It feels like ‘must win’ territory for both going into this one. For Blues, just so they can end this long winless run and for Barnsley if they are going to have any chance of remaining in the Championship beyond this season.

It’s certainly a different task that awaits Lee Bowyer and his side than the one on Tuesday evening and whilst the boss wasn’t overly negative of his team’s actual performance midweek, changes are still to be expected.

Here’s how we think he’ll go.

Goalkeeper

He might have conceded six against Fulham but he couldn’t really be blamed for any of them. Neil Etheridge to retain his place in the sticks.

Defence

There have been lots of rumours swirling around about Kristian Pedersen this week and whilst Lee Bowyer quashed those rumours in his pre-match press conference, his performance alone on Tuesday evening was probably enough to get him dropped.

George Friend returned from his one game suspension when he was brought on midway through the second-half and I think he comes back into the eleven.

The man he replaced, Marc Roberts, was brought off as a precaution and to save him from injury so there’s no doubt he will retain his place and young Teden Mengi will take up the third centre-back spot.

Midfield

None of the midfielders particularly had a good day on Tuesday and were dominated by their counterparts.

In the words of Bowyer himself they ‘didn’t lay a glove’ on Fulham but that wasn’t really helped by playing three very defensive minded players centrally.

With all due respect to Barnsley, Blues proably go far more attacking here and for that I can see Onel Hernandez dropping back as more of a ‘CAM’ in front of Ivan Sunjic and Ryan Woods.

I’ve got Gary Gardner dropping to the bench but it’s a bit of a coin toss who out of him Woods and Sunjic does so.

Attack

With Onel Hernandez dropping deeper this frees up the opportunity for Lukas Jutkiewicz and Scott Hogan to finally start again up top together.

It’s highly surprising Hogan has started both games on the bench following the injury of Troy Deeney but that should change on Saturday.

Formation

Sadly it’s still down as the 3-5-2 formation but hopefully with a few added additions and players returning from injury over the next few weeks, the ability to be a bit more flexible with system comes to fruition.

Birmingham City (3-5-2): Etheridge; Friend, Mengi, Roberts; Colin, Woods, Sunjic, Hernandez, Bela; Hogan, Jutkiewicz

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