McLeish defends team changes

Birmingham manager Alex McLeish has defended the team changes for the trip to West Ham after Blues lost for just the second time in 17 games.

McLeish made three changes to the team that had started the previous 11 games and saw his side beaten 2-0 by the Hammers, now run by former Birmingham owners David Sullivan and David Gold.

The manager was forced to replace the injured Christian Benitez and opted to start with Kevin Phillips, but also handed starts to Craig Gardner and Keith Fahey in place of Sebastian Larsson and James McFadden.

McLeish said: "When you've got 18 players that on any given day are all capable of contributing then it make sense to use them. It doesn't mean that if I had stuck with the same players then we would have won the game, there's no evidence of that."

But the Blues boss admitted his team lacked a cutting edge at Upton Park.

He said: "In the first half we played really well, I thought we never looked in any real danger. We just couldn't finish the moves off. We had balls flashing across the box but just couldn't score.

"West Ham deserved it on the night though."

McLeish has now challenged his players to respond to last night's defeat by winning in the FA Cup at Derby on Saturday.

He said: "The players have shown that ability to bounce back time and time again and the challenge is for them to show it again. We've got a hard FA Cup game at the weekend at Derby, that's a big carrot for the boys to show that they can bounce back.

"They've done it before so it's not as if they're wondering if they can do it, they know they can do it, it's up to them."