Birmingham City boss Alex McLeish praises senior stars after fightback

Mar 7 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

ALEX McLeish has told his stalwart players to keep on keeping on.

Blues fielded probably their oldest defensive unit on Wednesday against Bristol City – combined age 161 (including Maik Taylor, 37).

But McLeish stressed that it was not a pointer to the long-term, but a case of availability.

“It’s certainly not our future,” the manager said. “But if you take into account that Stuart Parnaby, David Murphy and Liam Ridgewell are out – who would all normally be involved – then we haven’t really got an old back four.

“Because of the injuries and the short-term deals we’ve done, the loan deals and such like, that’s the way it’s turned out now.”

Ulises de la Cruz, 35, was handed a month’s contract as cover, following the addition of Stephen Carr, 32, on a similar arrangement.

Franck Queudrue, 30, returned to the fold in place of Ridgewell at Sheffield United and then when Murphy suffered a thigh tear (he could be out for another three weeks), he moved across from centre-half to his normal left-back berth.

Had Djimi Traore not torn his hamstring in the reserves, Queudrue might not have got a sniff at all.

But he responded in typical talismanic style, thundering in a dramatic late header to see off Bristol.

“When he is concentrating and reading things like he was the other night... he was playing against a super quick player in Ivan Sproule and you would think one-against-one would be a really tough game for Franck.