Departed skipper Damien Johnson says Birmingham City must not get carried away
Feb 6 2010 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail
DAMIEN Johnson has warned Alex McLeish and Blues hierarchy about the biggest problem they face – managing expectation.
Johnson was Blues’ longest-serving player until severing his ties with a free transfer to Plymouth Argyle on transfer deadline day.
He’s pretty much seen it all at St Andrew’s, where he was captain since 2006.
And although he predicted a bright future for the club under McLeish’s stewardship and Carson Yeung’s rule, he stressed Blues should not get carried away with visions of grandeur.
“You’ve got to say hats off to the gaffer and the lads for what they’ve done this season, they’ve done unbelievably well,” said the Northern Ireland international.
“I don’t know quite what’s gone on in January and the transfer window, Alex is maybe a little disappointed he wasn’t able to bring in the players he wanted.
“But I know that if he’s given the backing, and they come up with these figures we’ve seen talked about, then he will invest the money wisely and do well for Birmingham with it.
“The big problem as they look to go forward is managing the expectation.
“Birmingham, at any stage, no matter how much money there is to spend, should hope to stay in the Premier League.
“The punters won’t like to hear that but it’s the reality of the league. We’ve seen the likes of Sunderland and West Ham spend enormous amounts on transfers and wages and struggle at the wrong end of the table, then you get managers being chopped and changed.
“There’s five, six or seven clubs on another level to everyone else in the Premier League. Birmingham have just got to establish themselves in that middle group and be happy with that, then hopefully move on as much as they can from there.
“I think they can with Alex if gets the money he wants for the players he wants, and is allowed to improve the infrastructure.”
Johnson was part of the last Blues team, the 2003-04 vintage, to do this well. Then all went pear-shaped two seasons later.
He reflected: “We had worked so hard to establish ourselves – exactly what I was talking about earlier – then it went the other way. There was a bit of complacency, thinking we were better than we actually were, but most people would agree that was the best squad we’ve ever had.
“I sometimes felt the manager went in for players but wasn’t allowed to get them.
“You would think ‘if we got him it would be fantastic’, then we’d end up with someone else on loan from Eastern Europe or somewhere. That was part of the problem.”
