Birmingham’s crippling injury list means manager Alex McLeish will call upon every fit and able first-team player at his disposal in the Carling Cup.

Blues are missing 12 players for a stiff all Premier League third round clash against Sunderland tonight, all established first-teamers, leaving the boss anxious to get through the tie in one piece.

Sebastian Larsson, Stephen Carr, James McFadden, Cameron Jerome, Franck Queudrue, Gregory Vignal, Marcus Bent, Martin Taylor, Lee Carsley, Damien Johnson and David Murphy will all misst the trip to the Stadium of Light.

Loan signing Teemu Tainio will also miss out, as he is ineligible to play against his parent club.

McLeish admits his squad is now a case of ‘if your fit, you play.’

He said: “I would like to rest maybe Ferguson, maybe Bowyer but they’ve got to play. It’s all we’ve got left.

“It’s an horrendous injury list, it’s a bit of bad luck but I should have better news come the end of the week.

“At the end of the day I’m still putting a pretty decent side onto the pitch. But it would be better to have the options, believe me, because a lot of the fellas that have been putting the intensity into games over the last couple of weeks certainly can’t keep that going.

“They need to be rotated at times, or else it’ll burn them out and they’ll get injuries.”