Blues are back in the title race

By cphilpotts

A bad week ended on a good note as a defeat followed by a victory has put Birmingham right back in the promotion fight.

The week started badly on Saturday as a defeat away at Blackpool will have left many Blues fans wondering what is going on.

I always thought it would be a tough game, even more so considering the number of new faces that Blues have got at the moment.

It will take a bit of time for them all to settle. After all they have got to get to know each other as people as well as team-mates before you will see the best of them.

I have been impressed with the lads Alex McLeish has brought in and I think they were just what Blues needed.

Lee Bowyer, I have said before, could be the key one as he is a quality player the likes of not many teams will have in this division.

When you add that to the speed and skill of Scott Sinclair and Hameur Bouazza, you can see that we have got a good side being built

Hameur is a player I know well from my time at Watford and I can tell you he will bring a lot to the team.

He is quick and skilful and also works very hard for the team.

He, alongside the likes of Lee Carsley and Bowyer, will give Blues the variety needed to get out of this league.

It was good to see the lads gel enough to get a win over Derby on Tuesday night.

That was never going to be an easy game what with Nigel Clough being there, but nevertheless Blues got the win they wanted.

That was so important as with Reading and Wolves playing on the same night it meant whatever happened Blues would catch up.

The Reading win in that game was the perfect result for Blues and will now give all the lads hope for the remainder of the season.

Hopefully, the Blues feel-good factor will be in force again this weekend – for purely personal reasons.

As a former Blues player of course I want to see them win, but also as a former Sheffield United player I want to see Wednesday lose.

If Blues could give them a good thumping that would be great for me as it would mean all the friends I have up there who are Blades will be happy for a while.

A Blues win is by no means guaranteed, though, as Wednesday are one of those teams who are sitting pretty in mid-table.

They are in no real danger of going down and in no real danger of going up and when a team is like that they can sometimes do things you do not expect.

They may be great one week and then average the next, so Blues will need to be on their guard to take anything from the game.