BLAZING ROW
Big improvement demanded after Brum surrender
BIRMINGHAM v COVENTRY St Andrew’s: KO 3pm
BY NEIL MOXLEY
GARY ROWETT has challenged Birmingham’s players to show the bottle necessary to drag them clear of trouble.
The club’s interim boss read the squad the riot act after a limp midweek defeat to Cardiff City.
Birmingham – whose owners announced plans for a £3billion development of a sports’ quarter in the city to include construction of a state-of-theart stadium earlier this week – have only relegated Rotherham United below them in the Championship table following defeat by the Bluebirds.
Rowett felt the response to falling a goal behind just before the hour (Josh Bowler on target, right) was weak and he has tried not to damage fragile confidence.
But he felt he had no choice but to let rip after the final whistle, asking his players to put it right in today’s derby. He said: “It’s always difficult when you first come in because you can’t just scream at the players every time you lose.
“After a while I will just be another manager this season that’s done that, so you try and find ways to encourage them and give them the structure, but Cardiff was a night when we just had to tell them how it was.
“There’s an opportunity for them there to respond or not, that’s their choice as a player.
“I know how I would have responded, I know how my assistant Paul Robinson would have responded, I know how (first-team coach) Ashley Cole would have responded.
“But we’re not playing and the players have to find some of that response because that wasn’t good enough.”
Coventry City boss Mark Robins struck a classy note when he talked about returning to a stadium he knows well. The Sky Blues groundshared St Andrew’s during their promotion campaign from League One – and it presently holds happier memories for them than the home supporters. Robins (above) said: “We’ll always be grateful to them about the time we spent at St Andrew’s, where we won promotion to the Championship by winning League One.
“They need the points and we’re all in the game for that. They had a difficult evening against Cardiff the other night and lost 1-0.
“Birmingham are only losing games by the odd goal. They have some really good players and they’ve had changes in managers this season.
“They’re not far away from getting decent results and they just came up short last time. There are no easy games and this one will be the same.”