Birmingham boss Alex McLeish criticised his side’s defending after they missed the chance to join Wolves at the top of the Championship.

Blues had a late effort from Scott Sinclair ruled out for offside but the visitors otherwise struggled against an in-form Coventry, who won thanks to a first-minute volley from former Walsall player Scott Dann.

McLeish was unhappy with the way his side failed to deal with the long ball and set-piece that led to the goal.

He said: “The start cost us the game, not the referee or the linesman.

“In the first minute, you want an inspirational tackle or header to get everybody going but that never happened. Instead, we didn’t deal with a long ball and they forced a corner.

“We didn’t learn our lesson because they scored from the set-piece so it was soft from our point of view.

“That made us nervous and, although there was fight in the second half, there was a lack of quality.”

Coventry got off to a flying start against their Midlands rivals when they took the lead after just 59 seconds.

Clinton Morrison forced a good stop from Birmingham keeper Maik Taylo,r before the resulting corner was side-footed into the bottom left corner by Sky Blues skipper Dann.

On 38 minutes Sebastian Larsson’s inswinging free-kick took a deflection, forcing goalkeeper Keiren Westwood to pull off a fantastic save down to his left.

Coventry’s new signing David Bell had a golden opportunity to extend the lead on the stroke of half-time but, when Leon McKenzie’s cross found him in space, his effort went wide of the post.

The home side again started the livelier of the two teams, before an end-to-end second half saw  good chances fall at either end to Birmingham’s Keith Fahey and Coventry’s Leon Best within the space of a minute.

There was controversy in the 81st minute when Sinclair had an effort ruled out for offside, but Coventry composed themselves and saw out five minutes of injury time to seal the victory.