Morrison the key to survival, says Cunningham

KENNY CUNNINGHAM sees his Republic of Ireland colleague, Clinton Morrison, as the key to Birmingham’s bid for Premiership survival.

Club record signing Morrison has taken time to adjust to the top flight after his £4 million-plus summer move from Crystal Palace. However, he took confidence from scoring for the Republic in their recent win over Scotland and netted the decisive second goal for Blues in their 2-1 home success over Liverpool on Sunday to follow on from his double strike at Anfield earlier in the season.

Republic captain Cunningham hopes Morrison can continue in that vein for next Monday's derby at Aston Villa and the remainder of the campaign, with City probably needing only two or three more wins for safety.

Cunningham said: "Clinton, like most of the forwards, is a confidence player. When he is scoring goals he is a different player.

"He is the kind of player who can have a streak of goals, and I hope this can be the start of such a run for him. He could still prove to be the key player for us between now and the end of the season, because he is a goalscorer.

"He has proved that throughout his career. He's had his ups and downs this season as we all have in adjusting to the Premiership but he's very young, still learning his trade and he's going to get better.

"He has the ability, the all-round game, to do that. He's very good with his back to goal, as good as I have seen, and he has that knack of arriving in the penalty box."

It is important, though, that Morrison's team-mates do all they can to help him and Cunningham admitted: "Clinton has not had as many chances this season as he would have liked, and we have to take our fair share of responsibility for that.

"We have to provide him with those opportunities. The one he had in the second half against Liverpool he put away and that's the mark of a top striker."

Winger Stan Lazaridis echoed Cunningham's sentiments and claimed: "Clinton could be a massive player for us. For a striker, scoring is vital in terms of the confidence and now he will go into the derby against Aston Villa with a goal behind him and full of beans."

* Manchester City boss Kevin Keegan says Richard Dunne will recover from Saturday's Maine Road humiliation. For the second successive home game, the Irish defender was hauled off at half-time as Premiership pace-setters Arsenal ran riot.

"I brought Richard off, but it could easily have been one or two others. Richard has come a long way this year but has struggled in the last couple of home games. But he is still only 23 and he will be back. He has to take this setback on the chin and show the same sort of character he did to return from his previous problems."