Blackpool 0 v. Birmingham City 2 - EFL League 1
EFL League 1
Wednesday 30th April 2025. EFL League 1. Blackpool (0) 0 v. Birmingham City (1) 2 (Ethan Laird 39, Alfie May 51. Attendance: 9,618
Blackpool: Harry Tyrer, James Husband (C)(Hayden Coulson HT), Lee Evans (Josh Onomah 65), Albie Morgan, Ashley Fletcher (Jake Beesley 65), Elkan Baggott, Olly Casey, Niall Ennis, CJ Hamilton, Odeluga Offiah (Jordan Gabriel 83), Rob Apter (Tom Bloxham 65). Unused subs - Richard O’Donnell, Matthew Pennington.
Birmingham City: Ryan Allsop, Ethan Laird (Taylor Gardner-Hickman 58), Christoph Klarer (captain), Ben Davies, Alex Cochrane, Tomoki Iwata, Marc Leonard (Paik Seung-ho 58), Willum Willumsson, Kieran Dowell (Luke Harris 63), Keshi Anderson (Jay Stansfield 58), Alfie May (C) (Grant Hanley 82). Unused subs - Bailey Peacock-Farrell, Emil Hansson.
Former Charlton Athletic youngster, Abie Morgan, had Blackpool's best (only?) chance of the first half, when Ryan Allsop saved a deflected shot with his outstretched left foot. Shortly afterwards Willum Willumsson fired just wide after showing some great footwork to make himself space to get a shot in, from the edge of Seasiders area. I’ve been massively impressed with Willumsson’s ever improving form in recent games, now he's familiarised himself with his surroundings and become a pivotal part of Blues record-breaking run-in. Marc Leonard's deep corner from left-wing narrowly evaded Ethan Laird beyond the back post. But the miss proved to be just a rehearsal, when moments later, Leonard delivered another left-sided flag-kick to Laird, who buried his header from a tight-angle beyond back-post, to give Blues the lead in the 39th minute.
The visitors doubled their lead on 51 minutes, when Keshi Anderson pounced to take advantage of Ollie Casey’s hesitancy dealing with a long knock forward by Allsop… and squared a pass to Blues captain: Alfie May, who took a touch, then placed the ball past Harry Tyrer from 10 yards out. Paik Seung-ho, entered the fray as a second-half substitute and quickly imposed himself, causing the Seasiders no end of problems. His corner-kick found May on the edge of the area, who hooked the ball towards Blackpool's goal where Jay Stansfield (another second-half substitute) tried to add a final touch but Tyrer gathered the ball in the nick of time.
Having spotted the hosts keeper off of his line, May attempted an audacious shot from the halfway-line line, but he put the ball wide. Stansfield’s shot deflected wide to where Tyrer had to put it out for corner, to avoid May who was approaching at pace through the right-channel from capitalising. With fifteen minutes to go, Blackpool began to up the ante ever so slightly, with a succession of crosses, that were all fielded away comfortably by the visitors defence, who appeared to be completely unflustered by anything in the air. Do your homework properly next time Steve Bruce! Hayden Coulson, who’d been a decent addition from the bench at half time for Blackpool, tested Allsop with a low cross/shot across the face of Blues goal, that the Blues keeper made look easy as he smothered the ball.
So that’s 108 points achieved, a new EFL record for any division over a standard 46 game season. Another record broken tonight was for third tier wins; Blues claimed their thirty-third tonight, the previous best was 32, a record that’s been held by Aston Villa since the 1971-72 season. Doncaster Rovers set a record for the most games won in a league season, 33, when they won the Third Division North title in the 1946–47, so, strictly speaking, to avoid anybody splitting hairs over a technicality, Blues need to win their final league game of the season at Cambridge United on Saturday.
Blues failed to beat just two teams this season, namely: Reading and Northampton Town, who they drew with twice. Every team in League 1 have now played 45 games and have one each left to play. Second placed Wrexham have already been promoted are 19 (nineteen) points behind Blues going into the final day of the season. Oh well, people did say that Birmingham City would be in for a shock in this division. FT: Blackpool 0 v. Birmingham City 2.
