Birmingham City: I am back to my best - Bowyer

Aug 27 2009 by Andy Walker, Birmingham Mail

“So I didn’t play as many minutes as I would have liked during the pre-season, but it was a big help at Southampton after an hour on Saturday against Stoke.”

And Bowyer admits that due to Stoke’s tactics, Saturday’s stalemate was hardly the ideal match to start finding his feet on the football field again.

“That was hard,” he reflected. “The ball is in the air half the game, Stoke just go long, get a throw, throw it in the box, then we clear it.

‘‘You don’t touch the ball; if you do, then it’s a header or a hook on. It’s not a football match, it’s just a battle out there.

“At times I thought I had done all right; the odd time I got caught when I was running with it, but that is just rustiness.

‘‘As I said, I haven’t had that many minutes so it helped me and I did better on Tuesday night than I did at the weekend.

‘‘Hopefully the 90 minutes will put me in good stead for the weekend and the forthcoming games.”

Bowyer latched on to an inch-perfect through-ball from Christian Benitez on Tuesday night to coolly fire home his second Blues goal, after finding the net on his debut against Cardiff in January.

He added: “Obviously I love scoring goals and most of my goals in the past have been like that one. I’m not one to score from 30 yards out, I can’t reach.

“Making runs, getting slipped in and finishing inside the box is me. So I was grateful to Christian to play me in.

“The main thing was to get into the next round, especially in the Carling Cup.”