Birmingham City are mentally up to challenge of Premier League says Alex McLeish

Nov 27 2009 by Colin Tattum, Birmingham Mail

Wolves v Birmingham City: Join our live blog - Sunday at 11.30pm - www.birminghammail.net/live

ALEX McLeish believes his side are getting stronger – in the head.

When Blues were relegated in 2007-08 under McLeish, he felt there was sometimes a mental weakness about them, especially in away matches.

And Blues more often than not failed to deliver in the crunch clashes against teams scrapping at the bottom but in the Championship, Blues were up to the task in the big games and Eck reckons they have not been found completely wanting this time round either.

Blues won at Hull City and defeated Fulham in another key fixture.

“That’s another cracker, in terms of mental toughness,” said McLeish, pointing to last Saturday. You talk about going to Man United and playing well, Spurs and Arsenal too. These games, you say there’s no pressure on Birmingham so they can relax.

“There was pressure on us against Fulham, against someone three points above us.

“For me, that’s a sign of mental toughness. Now the players are entitled to go forward knowing they’ve got that in the bank and they can do that again.”

Such steely toughness could spell bad news for Wolves in Sunday’s derby at Molineux.

“As long as they keep the feet on the ground and know that they are all in it together, and keep producing the kind of performance levels and application levels we have, then we could have a good season.”