Sad News: Birmingham City Head Coach Has Been Issue

Latest Birmingham City news from BirminghamLive includes Gary Rowett’s reaction to the damaging defeat to Cardiff

Gary Rowett has told his Birmingham City players to wake up and stop sleepwalking towards relegation to League One.

Cardiff City nudged Blues closer to the Championship trapdoor on Wednesday night with a 1-0 win at St Andrew’s. Josh Bowler scored the only goal of the game to inflict an eighth defeat in 10 games on Blues.

Rowett has overseen three narrow losses from his four matches as interim manager. The one to Cardiff clearly irked him more than those to Queens Park Rangers and Leicester City, where Blues conceded late goals.

“I’m disappointed with the way we’ve conceded goals,” said Rowett. “We have given goals away far too easily. We have conceded soft goals.

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“But we haven’t had chance to really react to them because of the timing of them. Tonight we had chance to react to it and we didn’t react. The game just fell away.

“We lacked character in that second half in the way it ended. That is hard and disappointing for me to say, but that’s the truth.

“The situation we’re in means if you’re a player in that dressing room surely you have got to be thinking we have got to do everything we can to get some points at this stage of the season. The last thing you want to do is stay in the bottom three.”

Blues, now 23rd in the Championship, held crisis talks in the dressing room after the Cardiff match. Rowett, his coaches and senior members of the Blues squad led the debrief.

Rowett commented: “It’s like anything, I can say whatever I want to the group and some of the senior players can say what they want. The message in there was that there has to be urgency. You can’t just sleepwalk into the situation that you’re in.

“There isn’t an easy four games to go and win to get out of it. You have to start fighting in every single moment in every single game.”

Never looks comfortable with the ball at his feet but made one or two decent saves. Commanded his area well after the break with one or two good gathers.

Perry Ng 7

Pretty quiet by his standards but defensively pretty sound. Had to take a booking for hauling down Juninho Bacuna on the breakaway in the second half.

Dimitrios Goutas 7

A couple of scary moments with the ball at his feet, but also sent rasping shot just wide from 30 yards out. Like his defensive partners, important interventions late in the match.

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Nat Phillips 7

Solid as we’ve come to expect and was a big weapon for the Bluebirds at the set-piece. Made a couple of big plays late on with Cardiff’s backs against the wall.

Jamilu Collins 8 (star man)

More active in the game going forward than we’ve seen at times this season. Linked well with Karlan Grant. Defensively did fantastically, too. Didn’t give Birmingham’s right-hand side a sniff.

Joe Ralls 7

Provided energy and a bit of dog in the middle. Composed with the ball at his feet and played with good tempo. Booked.

Manolis Siopis 7

Did his role to a tee. Tried to suffocate Birmingham’s advanced midfielders and did a good job. Also helped to double up on the wingers. A few errors while on the ball, mind.

Josh Bowler 6

Struggled to get past his defender and make meaningful contributions at the top end of the pitch in the first half. Then provided a moment of quality with a superb one-touch finish.

Aaron Ramsey 6

Looked classy when the ball came to him and started to find pockets of space, which helped open up the game. But then injury struck once again halfway through the first half, leaving him hobbling for a while before coming off at the break.

Karlan Grant 7

Proved once again why he’s been so important for Cardiff this year. Bombed up and down that left flank like his life depended on it. Set up Meite for one big chance which was saved.

Yakou Meite 6

A typical Meite performance, some good bits, some bad bits, some ungainly bits, but just lacking that quality when required at the crucial moment.

Subs

Rubin Colwill (Ramsey 46) 8 – Provided the assist for Bowler with a fantastically-weighted pass. So assured on the ball, made a real difference.