BCFC: You want come?

Birmingham City’s midweek away trip to Hillsborough was spiced up by some social media shenanigans on Tuesday afternoon. After a spiky conference where Sheffield Wednesday boss Garry Monk took aim at his former no 2 and current Blues Caretaker Head Coach Pep Clotet, Birmingham City’s Twitter account returned fire with an equally spicy tweet.

Birmingham City FC

I’ve got to say, I was quite surprised by the venom in Monk’s comments about Clotet.

While I was fairly aware that there was a fair amount of antipathy between the two, I have to admit I didn’t think Monk would be quite so openly salty.

It sounded to me like a resentful ex trying to convince themselves that they weren’t at fault after a particularly bitter break-up; that they “should have known better” and that they “won’t fall for that again”.

Bearing in mind Monk worked with Clotet at Swansea and Leeds as well as Blues it seems odd to me that he’s only now got a problem with Clotet breaking his trust.

I’m also not sure what Monk expected Clotet to do when the sacking happened.

While I have no doubt Clotet knew that the sacking was coming, surely Monk must have realised that his days were numbered.

Regardless, no matter how bitter Monk was, Blues went for a “hold my beer” moment.

I’ll admit, my first reaction to the Blues response was one of exasperation.

It just seemed so typical Blues for the official account to get into some twitter beef over a couple of throwaway lines at another manager’s press conference.

There is an argument that the club being so aggressive in their response is a touch hypocritical; bearing in mind how much the club have made the point in the past that the fans need to behave themselves.

At the time of the Sheffield Wednesday press conference news coming out I thought that the person who was going to be most offended was Blues CEO Ren Xuandong, rather than Clotet.

While the barbs were clearly directed at Clotet, I think that Monk was also implying his displeasure towards Ren.

The way the response tweet was worded definitely makes me think that Ren was involved in its writing.

While my first reaction was a bit of a “clean shirt” one, I have to admit that the more I reflect on the response the more I’m happy Blues at least tried to bite back.

Blues have adopted a siege mentality in recent times and I don’t think it bothers the hierarchy to be a little bit more disliked if it meant protecting  one of their own.

It’s also evident to me from a communications perspective that more and more “brand names” are using memes and “shitposting” culture to get across to their fanbase.

Therefore is it a bad thing Blues took a dig back?

I think where they went wrong was to accuse Monk of a lack of class, and to refer to the dig about Pep’s job title.

That was unnecessary – especially because I happen to believe it’s bollocks that Pep still has to labour under that “Caretaker” role.

I think if they had left it at simply “You want come?” (referencing when Edward Zheng Gannan said the same offering out a Blues fan) it would have been perfect.

Every Blues fan would have instantly got the joke – and it would have been a far funnier and less catty response.

Regardless, one thing is now for sure. The fixture is going to be even spicier than it was previously – and I suspect in Ren’s eyes at least it’s even more important that Blues get the W.

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