Birmingham City

Aman Mahmood
BBC Sport England

Image source, Getty Images

Birmingham City manager Chris Davies is unsure whether striker August Priske will be fit for their Halloween fixture against Lincoln.

The Blues' striker picked up a knock during their game against Queen's Park Rangers and was replaced by Luis Vazquez in their 1-0 loss to Cardiff.

Speaking to BBC Radio WM, Davies said: "He felt something in the game last week that he was trying to run off and it developed into something that was too much of a risk to continue with."

"Hopefully he's around for the next one, but if not then the one after that."

The 6ft 5in Denmark forward has found the net four times and provided one assist in the Championship this season after signing from from Swedish top-flight club Djurgardens in January.

Davies added that the loss of Priske on Saturday was "a blow".

"You could see his presence, quality and mobility up there was amiss," he added.

Laura Kenyon
BBC Final Score reporter

Image source, Shutterstock

The performance against Cardiff has exposed an area of concern for Birmingham City: attacking quality.

The absence of it in Chris Davies' side was visible for all to see on Saturday. They never really looked like scoring.

Yes, two big chances were carved out at the end of the game. There were mitigating factors - including the awful conditions - but that 0.8 xG stat tells a story.

August Priske, the leading scorer with five goals in all competitions, picked up a knock in training. Fortunately for Birmingham, the suggestion is it's minor and the Danish striker should not be out for too long.

But what could have been a huge statement performance for summer signing, Luis Vazquez, fell flat. Priske's replacement up top failed to make an impact on the game.

So what are the options?

Davies could push Jay Stansfield further up the pitch. Vasquez could still come good. But the more likely plea from the fans will be adding another quality striker to their January shopping list.

Ged Scott
BBC Sport England

Image source, James Marsh - Shutterstock

Birmingham City boss Chris Davies had an unhappy return to his Welsh roots as Cardiff City dished out Blues' first defeat in six games.

A weekend that began with a chance to see his side go top of the Championship after a run of 13 points out of a possible 15 and three straight wins, ended with Davies's side slipping three places to seventh.

Middlesbrough's 5-1 Friday night win at Bolton meant that leading the division was off the agenda when they kicked off in South Wales.

But, with Swansea City and West Ham United both losing, a win at the Cardiff City Stadium would have lifted Blues to second.

As it was, Yousef Salech's 31st-minute winner in the pouring rain proved the game's key moment. And Blues, without injured top scorer August Priske, looked second best.

"It's a game I knew would be tough," Davies told BBC Radio WM after his side's first defeat since 9 September. "They play with a press and real energy.

"We expected more from ourselves. But the best team won. They deserved it.

"In any game, if you're second to the ball that much it's always going to be hard.

"Defensively we were very disorganised for the goal which is unlike us. We gave ourselves a big job to recover from that.

"We couldn't quite get going until the end. We couldn't get on top of them until the last 15 minutes or so when we might have nicked something.

"Every time we had possession of the ball there was a blue shirt on us. Too much of the play was around our half-way line. We couldn't get close to their box."

Image source, Opta

Birmingham City will hope to record a fourth Championship win on the bounce when they visit Cardiff City on Saturday afternoon (kick-off 15:00 BST).

Victory for the fourth-placed Blues would make it their best winning run in the second tier since October 2018 when they also won four in a row.

The Bluebirds have enjoyed two good recent results, thrashing Watford 5-1 before picking up a 2-2 draw at promotion favourites Middlesbrough.

Brian Barry-Murphy's side start the weekend three points above the drop zone.

• Cardiff City have lost just one of their past 11 league games against Birmingham City (W7 D3), failing to score in just one of those matches.

• After winning their most recent away league game in this fixture 1-0 in December 2023, Birmingham City will be looking for successive away league wins over Cardiff City for the first time since December 1994.

• Cardiff are unbeaten across their past nine home league games (W5 D4), scoring 2.2 goals on average per game across that time.

• Birmingham City have won each of their past three league games without conceding; they last enjoyed a longer such run in November 2006 (run of five).

• Birmingham have conceded just six goals from open play in the Championship so far this season, with only West Ham United conceding fewer in the competition (5), while Blues rank sixth-best for open play xGA (8.9).

Image source, Shutterstock

Birmingham City winger Liam Millar says his excellent form is down to finding the "perfect" set up at Blues where he gets the "freedom to be me".

The Canada forward has scored four goals for Chris Davies' in-form side in his past four appearances, either side of the recent international break.

He scored in the 2-2 draw with Middlesbrough, put Blues on their way to a 4-0 win over Preston a week ago and grabbed two in Saturday's 3-0 victory over Queens Park Rangers.

Added to that were three assists earlier in September, to bring the 27-year-old's direct goal involvements to seven in his past seven matches.

Millar, who is with Blues for the rest of the season on loan from Premier League Hull City, told BBC Radio WM he has never felt more at home than at St. Andrew's.

"It's just the fact I can really express myself and be myself," he said.

"The gaffer gives me a lot of freedom to be me and I've never really had that in my career before where I've been able to really be able to express myself as much as I'm doing right now."

Millar also highlighted Blues development under Davies this season, including bringing more dimensions to their high-press style.

"A lot of it's down to the way that we play," he said.

"We play very good football and we have a good mix of going long and with the ball we're unpredictable.

"It's just all a perfect piece at the minute."

With Birmingham currently fourth in the Championship, three points behind leaders Swansea City, Millar is eyeing a second successive promotion, having won the play-off final with the Tigers last season.

He added he can see traits of that campaign brewing in his current dressing room.

"I see a lot of similarities between our team last year at Hull and this Birmingham team now," he said.

"Honestly, I feel really good about what's happening here so far.

"I'm just going to keep doing everything I can, and I'm sure the lads will do everything they can, to make sure that we get over the line this season and do what we all think we can do."

Kym Smith
Fan writer

Image source, Shutterstock

Three games in a week, nine points, three clean sheets - this is not typical Blues.

Being a football fan is an odd thing; when things are going well, you move away from your usual state of depression into worrying about when the bubble is going to burst.

I will therefore put my natural pessimism aside and try to enjoy our purple patch.

Liam Millar has now clocked up seven goal involvements in seven games and I am hoping there is an option to get him on a permanent basis like we did with Patrick Roberts last season. His contributions on Saturday were one of the highlights of an excellent team performance.

To be honest, I had been eyeing this game as a tough one compared to Tuesday night's against Preston, as it was fourth v fifth and we were level on points with QPR.

As it was, their attacking outlets found themselves limited; Paul Smyth was muscled out of the game by Bright Osayi-Samuel, and the Christoph Klarer-Phil Neumann brick wall was very effective in limiting Kwame Poku and Rayan Kolli.

I also need to give a couple of other shout-outs to members of the team, first to Tomoki Iwata. He has been the subject of grumbling from some Blues fans, but set up both of Millar's goals and is playing some really good football at the moment.

Secondly, to Jay Stansfield. He is instrumental in the way Blues play the press, forcing opposition players into mistakes, such as the one that led to our first goal on Saturday.

Demarai Gray's stoppage-time goal was a thing of beauty, and the icing on the cake for this week. Right now, Blues are operating really well.

Players like Millar are being allowed to play with freedom and we seem to have taken a big step away from the 'possession but no outlet' football of last season that many fans were frustrated by.

Chris Davies did say he had learnt some lessons and so far, he is doing well putting them into practice. It is a thumbs-up from me.

Hear and read more from Kym Smith on Birmingham Hospital Radio, external

We asked for your thoughts after Saturday's 3-0 win for Birmingham City over fellow fast-starters QPR.

Here are some of your comments:

Birmingham fans

Matt: We are absolutely flying! I doubted Chris Davies a few times, but right now he is working miracles! He really has this team ticking and I'm so pleased for him! Keep it up Blues!

George: Top, top, top performance from Blues. It's the best I've seen them play since we were in the Premier League.

Martin: Very impressive - Rangers very drilled, organised but no match for Millar's individual brilliance.

David: What a job Davies is doing, we look a completely different team from last season.

David Y: Outstanding performance. Keep this up and we will get automatic promotion.

Image source, Shutterstock

QPR fans

Ken: I do not understand why Paul Smyth is played on the left side when he performs so much better and is always a threat and gives us so much on the right. Stupid, I think. This happened many years ago with Jamie Mackie. Wrecked him. Probably end mid-table again when our squad of players are so much better then that. Stephan baffles me.

Colin: Rangers started the brighter of the two teams and if Boy Kemper had taken his chance after 10 minutes it might been a very different result. Birmingham took their chances and Rangers, while they played well, did not. Hopefully some of the injured players will be back next week for our home game against Swansea.

Gary: Stephan just got it so wrong! Kolli up front on his own. Smyth looked totally wiped, Kone is so unfit, formation wrong, narrow formation for a wide pitch, so we looked stretched… Should have played 5-3-2. Oh well… BCFC played well and look good!

Jim: Absolutely no consistency... much too early to sit on their laurels.

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Adam Cottier
BBC Radio 5 Live

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It is too early to call Birmingham City genuine promotion contenders, of course, but their early-season displays are giving cause for optimism and you can feel it inside St Andrew's.

This is a Birmingham side with something different to last season - they attack with more aggression and defend with authority. Saturday's victory over QPR had all that and more as they swatted aside a very capable team.

It looks as if Chris Davies took a deep dive in to ways he could improve his team in the summer and was prepared to adapt a more conservative style into something more exciting - and with pretty much the same players. It should win them a lot of games in this campaign.

August Priske is a real presence up front, other players look sharper and Liam Millar has added a lot.

The winger provides a significant route to goal, an outlet capable of spearheading Birmingham's approach of getting the ball up the pitch fast.

And a settled back line and goalkeeper - so solid and organised on Saturday - appears to aid Birmingham's cause. It was a well-earned clean sheet.

The goalkeeper, James Beadle, made three really good saves. He is maturing as arguably the best young English goalkeeper outside of the Premier League.

There are many encouraging things about Birmingham and the way they are evolving under their head coach, who has often divided opinion.

Sam Fletcher
Final Score at St Andrew's

Image source, Getty Images

Something has really clicked for Birmingham City. Against a decent QPR, they made it look easy.

There is praise for players across the pitch, who as a team looked stylish and confident, linking up smoothly throughout their 3-0 win at St Andrew's.

Jay Stansfield has settled into a different role, as a 10, this season. He's only appeared on the scoresheet once, with just one assist.

But these numbers don't reflect the impact he's having on the pitch and the involvement in many of the goals - he seems to often be the assist before the assist.

Stansfield is like the creative director of the team, with so much coming through him in the middle.

Known previously as an out-and-out goalscorer, it's very interesting to see him making the most of a more supportive role.

Birmingham City boss Chris Davies hailed a "great week" for his in-form side after they secured their third straight Championship win.

The Blues impressed as they beat QPR 3-0 to maintain their strong start to the season, which sees them sitting fourth in the table.

Davies told BBC Radio WM: "I said to the players before the game: 'It's been a good week and good teams would be happy with that, but we want to make it a great week'.

"That's what we focused on and I thought there was a real intensity about us today.

"I knew it would be a tough game. QPR, they came with a plan, but the way we started and finished we just had too much for them and I was really pleased with the performance.

"We played some good football today. What I didn't want to do is go up in the lead and almost panic and be scared by that. I thought we showed a much better development in our game than, for example, the Middlesbrough game."

Birmingham City take a four-game unbeaten run into their home meeting with QPR on Saturday (15:00 BST).

QPR ended a streak of four successive draws when beating Derby County 4-1 on Wednesday.

• Birmingham have not conceded in any of their past three home league games against QPR (W2 D1) since a 2-1 defeat in January 2022.

• After losing this fixture 1-0 last season, QPR are hoping to avoid losing back-to-back league visits to Birmingham for the first time since October 2008.

• With 17 points through their opening 10 Championship matches this season (W4 D5 L1), Birmingham have made their best start at this level since 2016-17.

• Each of QPR's past three away league games have finished in stalemate; they have not drawn four successive league fixtures on their travels since November 2010.

• This season in the Championship, QPR have conceded just one goal from set pieces (including penalties) – the joint-fewest in the competition, alongside Sheffield United. They also remain one of five teams in the second tier yet to concede from a corner.

Kym Smith
Fan writer

Ahead of the game against Preston, Blues were unbeaten at home, but also winless at home.

Strangely for us, we have been better away so far, so it was high time we got three points at St Andrew's.

Although buoyed up by the victory at West Brom, as a typical Blues fan I was slightly concerned about us playing the team at the bottom of the league.

Past history shows that we're good at giving struggling teams a leg up to better form.

I hesitate to use the "banana skin" cliche, but we needed to put on a proper performance.

And it was a performance; it was one of those games when it's difficult to pick out just one standout player, because so many of the team played well.

August Priske is improving game by game and Jay Stansfield is instrumental to the way Blues play their pressing game.

Liam Millar now has five goal involvements in six games, which is impressive.

Alex Cochrane's quick thinking and accuracy provided the second goal, and it was great to see Demarai Gray on the scoresheet.

Once again, Christoph Klarer and Phil Neumann were solid.

We've been waiting to see Blues produce a dominant display for a while and this is exactly what was served up.

Preston were low in confidence and we preyed upon that; as well as getting more resilient, we need to be more ruthless.

As we put the game to bed early, Chris Davies was able to use this game as a opportunity to give returning players some minutes; you don't get that luxury when you're trying to hang on for a result. It was also good to get our third clean sheet of the season.

This win puts us up to fourth in the table, but I doubt Saturday will be anywhere near as easy as the next visitors are QPR, who are just one place behind us.

They chalked up a comprehensive victory over Derby County on Wednesday night, so we need to stay in that winning headspace.

Hear and read more from Kym Smith on Birmingham Hospital Radio, external

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