Birmingham City urged to improve in one area amid Jay Stansfield debate - "I expect more" | OneFootball

Blues have been shot-shy in many of their opening 13 games

This article is part of Football League World's 'Terrace Talk' series, which provides personal opinions from our FLW Fan Pundits regarding the latest breaking news, teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…

Birmingham City's return to the Championship has certainly yielded mixed results on the pitch, leaving many to question their early pre-season predictions surrounding the West Midlands side.

A patchy two-month-long run of form under Chris Davies continued into the first game of November too, with Blues recording their most convincing win of the season when it came to a goal margin and overall performance, as Portsmouth were well and truly put to the sword at St. Andrew's @ Knighthead Park through a 4-0 scoreline.

Despite many believing that an encounter with a Pompey side notoriously known for being poor travellers could have seen Davies' men record a first home success since September 20th, not many would have forecast such a rout on the scoreboard, particularly when casting an eye on some particularly damning average metrics beforehand.

Across the prior 12 Championship matches, Blues had averaged less than one goal per game, and were ranked within the bottom three sides in the second tier when it came to shots on target per match - numbers which have, unsurprisingly, taken a small boost based off Saturday's developments.

However, that doesn't fully take away from the fact that many Bluenoses, and outsiders, have been left significantly underwhelmed by the lack of overall chances created and, in particular, wasted, when assessing the bundles of attacking and creative quality which runs throughout the squad.

This includes £10m summer recruit, Kyogo Furuhashi, Marvin Ducksch - who has struggled for fitness since his move from Werder Bremen - and club-record signing, Jay Stansfield.

The latter of the trio still is the club's top scorer thus far with five. Football League World asked our Blues fan pundit, Jason Moore, if he is concerned by said return, as well as the fact two of those have come from the penalty spot.

Unsurprisingly, given his potential, on top of the eight-figure sum Birmingham parted with to land Stansfield's services on a seven-year contract ahead of a record-breaking season in League One, many opposition supporters are quick to taunt the 22-year-old.

This led to many of those utilising the nickname of 'Pensfield' last season, as only 10 of his 19 league goals came from open play, although this could easily be countered by the fact none of his 12 goals during Blues' relegation season of 2023/24 came from the penalty spot.

Speaking to FLW, Moore understands why the England Under-21 international comes under scrutiny as a result, but believes there is an issue when it comes to creativity and urgency which runs through the whole team and needs to be rectified in the long run.

"Of course, Blues fans do (expect more from Stansfield) to be fair," he said. "But, the attacking output throughout the entire team has been absolutely dreadful.

"Without Jay's goals - penalties and open play - I'd dread to think where we'd be," Moore added. "The whole team has been pretty poor.

"Of course, we expect more from Jay, not even because of the price-tag, but because we know he's got the movement.

"But, it's like the Kyogo argument, what's he supposed to do if we're going side-to-side," Moore explained.

"Yes, I expect more from Jay. But, there's only so much he can do if the rest of the team aren't helping him.

"I expect more from the rest of the team from an attacking standpoint. We're 20th in the rankings for shots on target.

"It's alarming how bad we are at just having a shot at goal," he concluded.

Chris Davies will hope Portsmouth rout provides Birmingham City with an attacking springboard

Rather ironically, Stansfield saw his latest spot-kick saved by Joe Bursik, before Seung-ho Paik's header just minutes later set Blues on their way to a fifth win of the season, with goals from Tomoki Iwata, Christoph Klarer and Keshi Anderson following in the second-half.

After mustering just one chance at goal against Bristol City last weekend, Blues accumulated seven shots on target from a possible 19 - four of which found the net, showcasing a vast improvement.

Of course, there is still an expectation that creative and goalscoring forces such as Stansfield, Kyogo, Ducksch and Demarai Gray find the net or post assists on a regular basis. However, the rout against Pompey certainly provides Davies' side with a platform to build from in this sense.