This weekend saw the return of football for the West Midlands EFL clubs. How did your team do?

All in all it was a respectable result across the board for the West Midlands teams.

Image credit: efl.com

Saturday 30 July

Luton Town 0-0 Birmingham City

It was all square at Kenilworth Road as the Blues’ new manager John Eustace got his City career underway. It was always going to be a tough test for Birmingham as Luton were last season's beaten Championship Play-off semi-finalists.

Birmingham started 4 out of the 5 new signings they made this summer as they looked to shake up stagnant performances at the end of last season. It wasn’t to be, as they had only one shot on target, but an away point in the Championship is always a good result.

Nathan Jones, Luton Town manager, didn’t feel Blues wanted to win the game and questioned their ‘game management’ saying

“I think we have always had to deal with it here, apart from probably one season in the Championship, we have always had to deal with something here. I don’t know what Birmingham’s tactics were, yeah. It’s masked under playing out from the back where you line everyone up and it takes 30 seconds. You do that in the final minute and you are 1-0 up and it’s a booking. It’s a different rule for ten minutes.”

Middlesbrough 1-1 West Brom

The Championship’s evening kick off saw Middlesbrough take on West Brom at the Riverside Stadium. With both sets of fans feeling as though their club has underperformed in recent seasons, it was important for both to get off to a good start.

Middlesbrough opened the scoring within 10 minutes with a well worked goal by Isiah Jones. Albion struggled to find their groove after that with Steve Bruce, Albion manager, saying

“We didn't really recover after the goal. We didn't react in the way I hoped we would, and the second half was a whole lot better.”

And react they did, as John Swift scored on his debut 6 minutes after the break being set up by fellow new boy Jed Wallace. 

It was a good test for West Brom as Middlesbrough just missed out on the play-offs last season and are likely to be up there again this season. 

After a collapse after Bruce took over in February, Albion seem to have found their feet again and things are starting to look positive again, with a 1-1 draw a fair and decent result.

Walsall 4-0 Hartlepool

It was an absolute belter at Poundland Bescott Stadium as Walsall smashed Hartlepool 4-0 on the opening day of the season. On loan Mansfield striker, Danny Johnson, bagged himself a debut hattrick and MOTM award, as Walsall battered Hartlepool.

Johnson’s second was the best of the bunch, a nice half volley from just inside the area to make it 3-0 at the time.

The win leaves Walsall top of the League One table and as any football fan will tell you, it doesn’t matter at what stage of the season, it is always great to be top of the league!

Sunday 31 July

Sunderland 1-1 Coventry

Wrapping up the first round of EFL games Coventry travelled to the North East to play newly promoted Sunderland. 

Having had a brilliant campaign last season, narrowly missing out on a play-off spot, Coventry wanted to build on that but were faced with a tough team and bizarrely, fierce rivals in Sunderland.

Sunderland, playing their first season of Championship football since the 2017/18 season and spurred on by a bumper 40,851 fans, took the lead on 12 minutes with new signing Jack Clarke heading home from Lynden Gooch’s cross.

Coventry, without the Burnley bound Callum O’Hare in the side, gradually grew into the game and finally made their breakthrough with 6 minutes left on the clock. Last season's top goal scorer, Viktor Gyökeres, getting himself off the mark and securing a point for the visitors.

All in all it was a respectable result across the board for the West Midlands teams. It is always great to start the season positively and a point away from home in the first game is a big result.

This week's winner: It has got to be Danny Johnson. You cannot score a hattrick on your debut and expect to slip under the radar. Walsall fans will be hoping his goals per game ratio continues!

This week’s loser: Nathan Jones, come on! I'm not an avid watcher of Luton but I'm sure that his teams have participated in certain elements of ‘game management’ during his reign. He should just be happy they didn’t get hammered 5-0 like season!