Over the Blue moon

Chris Kamara hails Birmingham's Wembley wonders as he makes his Picks of the Weekend.

Chris Kamara's Picks of the Weekend

Every Saturday afternoon, Chris Kamara heads to stadiums up and down the country to deliver his unique match reports for Soccer Saturday. On Sundays you can see him back in the Sky Sports studios as he brings you all of the highlights on Goals on Sunday. And then on Mondays you can find Kammy right here on skysports.com as he brings you his picks of the weekend. Join us every week as he runs through his highs and lows... GAME - Carling Cup final
We usually focus on Premier League games, but I was at the Carling Cup final so I have to choose that. We saw some great displays by West Ham, Fulham and Wolves this weekend, but Birmingham topped the lot and got their tactics spot on to win the first trophy of the season. I know Ben Foster played well to keep Arsenal out, but Alex McLeish played a certain way to get a certain result and they go home with the glory. For the neutral it was a fantastic game of football and it had a bit of everything. There was a big mistake early on from the officials, a win for the underdog, fine individual performances from Jack Wilshere and Ben Foster and some very good substitutions from the Birmingham manager. Alex made positive changes, bringing on strikers and it paid off for them. And there was also a great atmosphere from both sets of supporters.

TEAM - Birmingham
It's got to be the Carling Cup winners. The Birmingham camp are all saying that nobody gave them a chance in the Carling Cup final. I don't think that's true; everybody gave them a chance, but it looked more likely that Arsenal were going to end their wait for a trophy. As it turned out, every one of Birmingham's players were up for it. They played to a system that suited them that was focused around the lone striker Nikola Zigic. At times the system didn't function as well as it might have because Zigic didn't win that many headers, but his mere presence was enough to distract the centre-halves - and that was McLeish's ploy. Foster played well in goal, but all of the players were up for it. I don't think there's any doubt that they'll stay up. They have a strong defence and goalkeeper and they can score goals. The additions to the squad have improved them, as we saw on Sunday with two of the subs having been signed in January. In fact, I'm surprised they're as low as they are in the table.

GAFFER - Alex McLeish
This is his first trophy in English football after a lot of ups and downs at Birmingham. In his first season he went there and couldn't save them from the drop, but he won automatic promotion in his second season. Last year they had a good campaign, but I remember being there when they played Bolton and the fans were all screaming at him to play two up front. He's rode that out - and now the fans wouldn't want anyone else! He got the big tactical decisions right at Wembley. He could have gone for the pace of Cameron Jerome or the trickery of Obafemi Martins, but the Arsenal defenders would have been happier with that. He knew the Arsenal weakness and he exploited it by playing Zigic, which was fascinating. It wasn't as if Zigic played that well - he wasn't a Niall Quinn or an Alan Shearer terrorising them in the air. it was just the fact that he was so tall that distracted the back four.

PLAYER - Scott Parker
Scott Parker seems to be carrying West Ham on his shoulders with the performances he brings to that team every week. I'll pick him out because he seems to be the catalyst for that football club and I don't think any other player influences a team as much as he does. I should also mention Jermaine Beckford. I was having a cup of tea with David Moyes before their game with Sunderland and he said he's one of those players where the ball finds him in the box - and he finds the ball. He said he just hasn't been converting his chances, "but maybe he'll score a hat-trick today". Well he went out and got two - and then he took him off before those words were proved true! I'll also mention Javier Hernandez, who looks like the next Andy Cole or Ruud van Nistelrooy and in fact, Charlie Nicholas compared him to a young Michael Owen on Goals on Sunday. Man United have strikers like Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov, who don't always play on the last defender, but Hernandez gives them a different dimension. When he goes through one on one you think he's going to score every time.

GOAL - Matt Jarvis
I was very impressed with Wolves on Saturday. Adam Hammill caught my eye before he went off injured and Sylvan Ebanks-Blake helped himself to a couple of goals. But the real eye-catching moment was the first goal scored by Matt Jarvis. It was an absolutely outstanding team goal. David Edwards picked it up, gave it to Hammill and he gave it back to him before laying it to Ronald Zubar. He brought it down, gave it back to Edwards who knocked it to Hammill and he found Jarvis who burst through and scored. It was great football. People say it was "only Blackpool", but even without Charlie Adam Blackpool are no mugs.

GRIPE - Wembley woe for linesman
It was an incredible opening to the Carling Cup final when the assistant gave Lee Bowyer offside when it wasn't even close. They don't show controversial incidents on the Wembley screens, but I could see with the naked eye that he was onside, so it was inexcusable from the official. It should have been a penalty and Arsenal should have had the goalkeeper sent off, but the good thing about it is that it didn't have a bearing on the result - because otherwise that's all we'd be talking about now, like last year when Nemanja Vidic should have been sent off against Aston Villa. At least we don't have to talk about that all day. Overall, we saw some decent performances from referees, which is good to see. The big talking point is Mark Clattenburg's reaction to Wayne Rooney's elbow on James McCarthy (who I think deserves great credit for staying on his feet). Because of the player involved it is going to be big news, but we need to wait and see what the referee's report says before anything can be done about it.