You may have noticed a severe lack of updates lately. This is because the blog has now closed its doors for the last time. I quit. I'm done. I'm finished. Something will - hopefully, in time - replace the blog as the main focus of the Joys & Sorrows site but for now, this will remain [...]

Opposition: Wigan Athletic Competition: Premiership Venue: JJB Stadium Stats/Form: Wigan go into this game on the back of two successive defeats with one win from their last six. Blues have also struggled to win of late with just one win from their last four. Blues and Wigan have only met nine times in the league, with two wins apiece.

I've purposely avoided posting about Zarate since his arrival. I think, mainly, because I had a different opinion to everyone else. Everyone else seemed to enthuse about him and think that he could and would be our saviour - it was just a case of banging him into the side and then he'd go and [...]

This Saturday has all the feelings of a derby game attached to it, doesn't it? It's making me feel sick. It's an important game already without the added spice of Bruce, Heskey etc, as mentioned by Roy Aitken earlier today. There's another glut of articles been posted on various sites today and as Saturday approaches, the [.

It's only Tuesday and already the significance of the Blues-Wigan game is sharply in focus. With Blues coming up against Steve Bruce for the first time since his bizarre departure in November and with the sides so closely locked together in the league, there was bound to be a lot of interest in the game.

At 3.40pm last Saturday Blues were technically sitting in the bottom three of the Premiership. That, just over and hour later, they were four points clear of the last relegation place shows how thin the dividing line in football can be. Make no mistake, Alex McLeish's men deserved the vital home win against Manchester City.

I'm delighted to say that a popular and semi-sensible 'nose (it's the best I could do from the Joys & Sorrows forum) has agreed to take over doing the match previews, starting with the City preview today. Welcome Nat and thanks for your work. Opposition: Manchester City Competition: Premiership Venue: St.

Is it just me or has it been a bit strange since Alex McLeish, Roy Aitken and Andy Watson turned up? I was reading some articles today [#1, #2, #3, #4, #5] and it got me thinking. We've been consistently not getting our just desserts whilst conceding stupid goals as well as spending most of [...]

I've finally fixed the poll! It now works. You can vote and everything. Honest. Go and try it. I hear you cry "What good is a poll if you have forgotten to update the blog for the best part of a week and completely ignored the fact that we lost at Reading at the weekend, Affers?" [...]

I'm not sure when Small Heath started wearing royal blue. The first reference I've ever seen is from 1894, when we won our first promotion and the players tied their blue shirts to the train into New Street. So it may be that we wore blue from the very first kick, back in 1875 – [...]

The nerves are showing. In the players, in the fans. No matter how hard Blues try three points have eluded them once again. Exciting it may be, with a little more guile and thought Blues have let slip of winnable situations too often for it to be coincidence. Last night, on a cold evening, it was [..

I promised myself that I wouldn't get back on this topic after the sheer volume of stuff I'd read over the last month or so about it. It really is incredible how much reaction their has been to this incident. More stuff has happened over the last few days and so I'll link it up [...]

Sebastian Larsson is set for a scan on his left knee after a wild swing by Nicky Butt in last night's game against Newcastle United. You can read the details here. What I know about medial ligaments probably isn't worth knowing but just the term leaves me tickle stomached with a queasy uprising in my throat.

Well, after all the pre-march anxiety, the game is finally over... Here's what Big Eck had to say. Here's what Kevin Keegan had to say. You can peruse a fairly sizable chunk of the web's match reports by clicking on the links below: Official Blues Official Newcastle Beeb Birmingham Mail Guardian Independent Mirror Setanta Singing The Blues Sky Sports Sporting Life Sun Times Writing any sort of report about Blues-Newcastle today [.

I had planned a full match preview but upon getting home from work and crashing around a track on Project Gotham Racing for a while, I realised that it probably wasn't worth it just two hours before kick off. Now there's just over an hour to go before our biggest game of the season and [...]