Birmingham City duo return at crucial time for promotion push

Apr 11 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

BLUES are going to be all the stronger for the availability of James McFadden and Garry O’Connor.

McFadden followed his Scotland international team-mate back into the fray this week after similarly recovering from a lengthy injury lay-off.

“These guys have been out a long time. I don’t know if a lot of teams would have coped with two of their big players out for that long,’’ said Alex McLeish.

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“It’s a credit to the rest of the group that we’ve managed to maintain our grip.

“But it is a crucial time for them to be involved again.

“James came on the other night and it was a pleasure to see him using the ball well, his decision-making using the ball was great, absolutely razor-sharp.

“He has had a patchy season due to injury and illness, but he looked like the James we saw when he joined us from Everton.

“O’Connor was a wee bit ring rusty against Norwich but he’s been training over a four, five week period now. He’s had a few practice matches at the training ground and coming off the bench the other night he worked his socks off and got a great reward with his goal.

“He’s a finisher, a great finisher. I think we saw glimpses of that just before his injury.”