The Three Pointer Vs. Sheffield Wednesday

Overview

Lee Carsley takes charge of his first home fixture as Birmingham City caretaker manager tomorrow night as Sheffield Wednesday visit St. Andrew`s.

There are plenty of positives to build on from Saturday`s 1-1 draw at Derby County – the most notable being that we stopped the rot of six straight defeats.

Now, under the lights at St. Andrew`s, we’ve got a great opportunity to go out and get three points in front of the home faithful.

Sheffield Wednesday are on the back of a 4-2 derby day defeat to fierce rivals Sheffield United, so they’ll be keen to bounce straight back from that and there’s plenty of quality in their side to do so.

Carlos Carvalhal will have his side right up for the test of coming up against Carsley`s Blues, but there is pressure on him and his side to deliver.

Approach

I don’t expect Carsley to change much at all from Saturday`s game, but Lukas Jutkiewicz will certainly be knocking on the door after scoring with his first touch against The Rams.

Sam Gallagher has struggled to find any real rhythm since coming to the club and perhaps it’s time for him to sit this one out.

I personally would start Jutkiewicz where we`ll hopefully see the ball stick a bit more up front.

The 4-3-3 system that was deployed at Pride Park is most likely to remain, but what we do with the ball will have a lot more significance.

Being the home side, I am sure that Carsley will want us to play on the front foot that bit more and perhaps take a few more risks going forward.

There are players in our side that can hurt opponents and while we look to play with more freedom going forward, we’ve got to remain a tight unit and continue to develop that relationship with one another.

Exploit

It goes without saying, Sheffield Wednesday`s defence will be feeling extremely fragile after being exposed four times by their bitter rivals.

At times on Sunday they looked shocking at the back, so Blues have got to get right under their noses from the first whistle.

They’ve got the quality going forward with the likes of Gary Hooper, Steven Fletcher and Jordan Rhodes so the back four have to stay compact.

If we can get the likes of Jeremie Boga and Isaac Vassell running at pace towards the Wednesday backline, then I’ve got no doubt that we`ll cause them problems and create chances.

What we’ve got to do is take one of those chances. And, if we take the lead, we’ve got to hold onto it for longer than we did on Saturday.

But, I’d say I’m fairly confident going into tomorrow’s game. Let’s just hope that my gut is right and the team follow it up with three points.