Clotet plays to Blues strengths with Lee recall

PEP Clotet recalled Lee Camp to Birmingham City’s starting line-up for his defensive organisation.

The 35-year-old had been left out of the last ten Championship matches, with Connal Trueman coming in for his first sustained period in the senior team.

Clotet changed back to Camp for the FA Cup win over Blackburn and opted to continue with him at Luton Town on Saturday.

The veteran gave a solid display and was beaten only by James Collins’ penalty in Blues’ 2-1 win. “When Connal came in he did a good job, he got himself a lot of experience in the Championship and got a lot of games,” said head coach Clotet.

“When it came to being away from home... I thought Campy the other day (against Blackburn) managed to control the defence very well and that he deserved to keep playing at Luton.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t trust Connal, I just picked the best one for Luton. Connal’s time will come again in his Blues career.”

Clotet was also pleased with the display of Lukas Jutkiewicz, who bagged his ninth goal of the season and led the line throughout.

“I think his partnership with Kerim (Mrabti) worked very well,” he said. “We always know what Jukey will give us because he gives everything for the club. He just proved it again. “Look, we are in January and he has already scored nine goals, he is a capital player for us. He is our main forward and at Luton he proved it. The first chance he had he scored.

“We played to his strength but obviously he put it in, he almost had another one and I think he managed to put a fantastic performance in.

“He helped us defensively towards the end, but all season he has been a capital player.”

Those comments come after Jutkiewicz once again underlined his importance to the team, as one of just two recognised strikers.

Both Camp and Jutkiewicz’s selection are also set in a context of Clotet having picked a very experienced side built on stalwarts like David Davis and Jacques Maghoma. “We analysed Luton, had the whole week to work on them and knew their strengths and weaknesses,” he continued.

“We played a side that could cope very well with Luton’s weaknesses and defend their strengths very well.

“It was very important to think about not leaving gaps, to be solid in defence, to have the experience to know we could control the game without controlling the possession.

“The fact we scored first made it a little bit easier for us to concede more possession than normal but we were feeling very comfortable.

“Despite what the table suggests, Luton is a very tough place to come, I thought we picked the best team for the job and were prepared on the bench for any situation that arose.

“It’s not just the situation in the table or the run of results, with the line-up we picked it was important for me that everyone understood the kind of game we were in and experience plays a big part in understanding the game-plan.”