Kevin Phillips is not happy sitting on the bench despite grabbing all three points for Birmingham after coming on as a substitute.

The summer signing from Albion believes he needs to play games at this stage of his career and is hoping Alex McLeish does not see him as just a supersub.

Veteran striker Phillips showed the Birmingham boss what he is capable of, after netting the winner less than a minute after coming on against Southampton at St Mary’s on Saturday in the 76th minute.

Phillips said: “I had offers from some other clubs but I feel Birmingham could be really going places this season.

“We have five good strikers at the club and at this stage of my career I want to be playing every week, because obviously I don’t have that much time left.

“Hopefully I’m doing myself a few favours, by scoring the goals to make the manager take notice because I want to play every match.”

Former Southampton player Phillips insisted he enjoyed being booed by the home fans, so he could ram their jeers back down their throats by scoring.

Phillips said: “I don’t know why the Southampton fans boo me, so you’d have to ask them why they do it.

“I think they thought I said I should never have joined Southampton but I never thought that or said it. I said I never wanted to leave Sunderland but that doesn’t mean I never wanted to be at Southampton.

“I was here for four years as an apprentice and two years as a player and I had a great time here for all of the six years. I enjoyed myself as a player here and I would like them to do well because it’s a fantastic club.

“Hearing the crowd definitely gets you going and gives you an incentive to get the ball in the back of the net to score to shut them up. When there’s 20,000 people shouting you can hear it so it’s nice to get the goal.”

Southampton took the lead through Chris Perry’s first goal for the club just before half-time when he headed home a corner.

The Blues equalised four minutes after the break through Garry O’Connor and Phillips struck to make it two wins out of two in the Championship so far this season.