Birmingham City: Poor away form must end at Doncaster, says Alex McLeish

Mar 13 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

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ALEX McLeish has told Blues they have to raise their game at Doncaster Rovers tomorrow.

Blues are still striving for their first away victory since Boxing Day – seven matches ago.

And the Blues boss said he expected performance levels to go up a few notches from Tuesday night at Barnsley.

Garry O’Connor will again be on the substitutes bench, but Lee Bowyer is not guaranteed to return from injury. He was rated in the 50-50 category by McLeish.

“No doubt, we can perform better than we did,” said McLeish. “I don’t think the strikers got great support the other night. There wasn’t the energy from the widemen or the central midfield. We lost the thrust of Lee Bowyer. You can’t all of a sudden ask Damien Johnson and Lee Carsley to become a Lee Bowyer in his absence. They are different types of players.

“So we lost that thrust and there was a wee bit of a lack of energy. We knocked the ball forward and therefore it is really up to the strikers to retain possession for us and wait for support.

“That’s where I felt we lacked that wee bit of quality, in the last third. We didn’t retain the ball nearly well enough, get forward to support, and cause Barnsley enough problems.”

McLeish could opt to use Keith Fahey in the centre of the park and bring back Scott Sinclair to the starting line-up.

But Kevin Phillips won’t be risked. Blues are eyeing up the Norwich City home game a week tomorrow instead to be totally sure he is fit.

Rovers startling run of form – six wins in their last eight games – has eased relegation fears.