Blues without Benitez at Arsenal
Birmingham will welcome back striker Cameron Jerome for the first time in two months tomorrow at Arsenal - but fellow forward Christian Benitez will not be back in time.
Benitez is still in Ecuador after international duty in their final World Cup qualifier in Santiago on Wednesday evening, having been originally scheduled to fly back into London to meet up with the squad at the team hotel in London.
At least Jerome is fit again, having been sidelined since suffering an ankle injury against Portsmouth at St Andrew's in the second match of the Premier League season.
But McLeish must do without his record signing, and is none too happy about it.
He said: "We don't have 'Chucho' back. There's been some confusion over his return from Santiago in Chile. They were en-route to Quito and then apparently missed the flight to Amsterdam in the morning.
"I really have to investigate it. When you have players away in different continents it's hard to police it and hard to monitor it. We're not the only club that's had problems in that respect.
"I would like to ask the Ecuadorian FA why he's not back and I'd also like to ask Chucho why he never made a concerted effort to get back in time?"
Blues still have a host of injury problems ahead of the tough test at the Emirates. Gregory Vignal, Franck Queudrue, Martin Taylor, Danny Murphy, Teemu Tainio, Giovanny Espinoza, Stuart Parnaby and Keith Fahey are all abouts.
