Bruce praise as Blues bounce back

Birmingham boss Steve Bruce has praised his players for responding to the embarrassing thrashing at the hands of Liverpool last month.

After losing to Rafael Benitez’s side 7-0, Birmingham showed signs of improvement against Manchester United, before holding champions Chelsea to a goalless draw at the weekend.

Last night, Bruce’s men defeated Bolton to lift themselves out of the bottom three in the Premiership for the first time in six months, with Jiri Jarosik scoring the only goal of the game at St Andrews.

“Six months is a long time to keep everybody bubbling along, making sure they do not lose their confidence,” Bruce said.

“The big turning point was the humiliation we felt against Liverpool two weeks ago, and they have rolled their sleeves up, dug in, and produced a really good performance again.”

Bruce’s night started badly, with midfield duo Stephen Clemence and Nicky Butt forced off through injury and Stan Lazaridis and Mikael Forssell brought off the bench.

The enforced changes proved effective, though, with Forssell offering a threat and Jarosik striking in spectacular fashion with nine minutes left in the first half.

“It was not pretty at times, in the first half hour there wasn’t much football I have to say, but the introduction of Forssell helped us by being a bit more positive,” Bruce added.

Stelios Giannakopoulos wasted two close-range chances for the visitors, while Kevin Nolan forced a fine save from Maik Taylor.

Although he felt his side deserved something from the game, Bolton boss Sam Allardyce was disappointed with his team’s attacking approach.

He said: “I wanted us to get more width in the game when Birmingham were obviously just going to drop people behind the ball, hang on to what they have got and try to see the game out.

“I needed us to not play balls down the middle from central positions, we went to a 4-2-4 to get balls from wide positions but the quality in the end was not quite good enough.

“When it was good enough and Stelios has the best chance, you expect to score. Unfortunately we didn’t.”

Bolton have now lost their last three games and appear to be losing ground in their bid for European qualification.

With last November’s clash between the two clubs postponed due to fog, Allardyce wanted his side to take advantage of the rearranged fixture at St Andrews.

He added: “This was one of the games we were catching up from earlier in the year. When they come around you cannot waste them, but we did that.

“If we wanted to stay on the brink of sixth and upwards then we could catch people up by getting something out of the game.

“I said to the players it’s not a must-win game, it’s a must-not-lose game but unfortunately we have.”