lead-art-block.fullscreen-enterExpandChristoph Klarer apologised to Birmingham’s fans
Christoph Klarer apologised to Birmingham’s fans
Birmingham captain Christoph Klarer apologised to the fans who walked out during their chastening 6-1 Carabao Cup defeat to Brentford.
Demarai Gray’s equaliser, after Callum Wilson struck just six minutes into his full Bees debut, was the only thing St Andrew’s had to cheer all night as the visitors ran riot, with Nathan Collins scoring two headers and Aaron Hickey, Mikkel Damsgaard and Igor Thiago all on the scoresheet.
When Thiago scored the fifth supporters started streaming for the exits and those that remained made their feelings clear at the final whistle.
“It’s a really painful evening for us as a team, short in every department. They were clearly on a different level to us, a different dimension,” said Klarer.
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“We were never going to match the quality but we have to put up a fight, we can’t fall apart and the goals in the first half were too easy.
“They are a team flying high but we were below our level on many aspects.
“It wasn’t good enough from any of us and we can only apologise to the fans.
“I never want to see us lose the way we did today, all we can do is regain their trust with our performance but there is nothing I can say which will make it better.”
Manager Chris Davies also apologised.
“My message to supporters tonight is ‘Sorry’. It’s not very pleasant and I can understand how frustrating it is for them,” he said.
“It was a very tough evening for us, a painful evening, and incredibly disappointing to lose a game 6-1 at home.
“There were many situations where we were just not good enough to compete and I take ultimate responsibility for it – and the players will have to do it in their own minds.
“We were beaten by a team a long way ahead of us in every aspect. Was 6-1 a fair reflection? Probably.”
Wilson seized his first opportunity with a crisp finish which took a deflection off defender Dael Fry and after Gray’s leveller, lax defending saw Hickey and Collins score in quick succession.
Damsgaard got on the end of a counter-attack to add the fourth and Thiago’s smart close-range finish sent fans streaming for the exit, missing Collins’ second header.
Brentford head coach Keith Andrews was “pretty pleased” with the performance from a side showing eight changes from Saturday’s demolition of Tottenham.
“I didn’t really blink an eyelid making so many changes,” he said.
“There is a huge narrative around cup games with coaches making changes but with the squad we have, there are fine margins between who plays and doesn’t play.
“We needed to compete really hard to play the game we wanted. I thought overall we produced a really good performance.”