Investment is the only way to lift Blues

THERE is no silver bullet for Birmingham City’s mounting problems, no single decision is suddenly going to part the clouds and reveal blue skies above St Andrew’s.

Changing from three centre backs to a back-four, handing Troy Deeney the armband, playing defenders as wing backs instead of wingers, they’re all deckchairs on City’s Titanic.

Moving Harlee Dean out of the club might be a powerful symbol, but if and when the 30-year-old leaves, no-one is going to wake up and find Blues suddenly transformed into a promotion-challenging outfit.

On their day Blues are a solid, physically powerful Championship team.

Off it, when the energy that is their stock in trade is absent, they are a modest, even slightly vulnerable side that is not yet free from the psychological chains which have anchored them in the nether regions of the league for half a decade.

Pick a chair, move it as much as you want, it won’t change the course of a club that is in dire need of investment before that metaphorical iceberg hoves into view.

This is a point Lee Bowyer has made at every opportunity for the last few weeks. Indeed, so insistently has he made it that it has started to dominate the narrative around Blues’ matches and press conferences.

Bowyer’s disappointment stems from his belief he would be backed in the transfer market, saying this month: “There have been a lot of changes from what I was told when I came to now, but it is what it is.”

So that point has been made, now it’s about finding solutions before the gloom engulfs too much more of the season. Bowyer and Craig Gardner are working to find those solutions – and as disappointed as the head coach is, the situation cannot be allowed to hinder the matter at hand.