Birmingham City star's view on the Championship

Nov 27 2008 By Colin Tattum

start the way we did, and play in the manner we did," said James McFadden.

"We passed it well, we looked comfortable. Second-half maybe the urgency wasn't there so much because we didn't have to press on and, until the last 10 or 15 minutes, they never really posed a threat. So it was kind of a bit of a dull game in the second-half until they got their goal.

"But we can take heart from the first-half performance, and we need to keep carrying it on. I said after the Charlton game that we have to go on a run and that's three wins in a row now.

"Hopefully we can continue it Saturday and push further away from the teams who are chasing us."

Larsson said when Blues fully commit to knocking the ball around and spreading the play, as they have tried to do in the majority of cases this season, they are all the better for it.

He commented: "That was the most pleasing thing, that we passed the ball around and looked quite comfortable with it. We passed it at the back, in midfield and created some chances.

"Maybe the first-half was our best half of the season. It's obviously a shame when you concede a goal late on, because I thought we were more in control than what the scoreline ended up showing.

"In the end, a bit of sloppy play from me allowed them to get a corner and they stuck it away, and then that always makes you nervous.

"But overall I thought it was good from us and we have got to keep building on this and we should be confident after three wins in the row, with a decent performance."

"Personally, I felt good," he added. "I think that was a result of us keeping the ball, passing the ball.

"When you have got the ball in a bit of space with runners going, it makes things easy for individuals to try to pick a pass and try to do something."

Manager Alex McLeish enthused: "I was absolutely delighted with the performance. I know I'd be kidding people on if I said that the 90 minutes was brilliant, but the first-half was fantastic.

"The fast passing, the quick movement . . . James McFadden looked on fire, Seb Larsson looked on fire, the two front men led the line really well.

"And we got our reward for some brilliant forward play.

"Nigel Quashie was a good link from middle to front, Lee Carsley was trying to get forward and had a couple of pots at goal. So I was pleased that the players were on the front foot all night.

"We asked the front four boys to win the game for us and we needed aggression all over the pitch from everybody else, and we got that.

"Sometimes you can't control a game for 90 minutes and in the second-half we lost a bit of momentum with the substitutions, caused by injuries. Losing our two central midfielders, it disrupted our rhythm."

Carsley (thigh) and Quashie (heel), should be fit for Molineux, McLeish predicted.