It’s a short journey down the M6 for Blues this weekend for the away trip to local rivals Coventry City, in the Championship early kick off of the day. With the cup competitions now done for Blues this year, it’s all about the league – can Blues re-start their bid for promotion with a win over the Sky Blues?

Coventry City FC

Whilst Coventry are still in the drop-zone, they have improved of late with two good wins at the Ricoh over Leeds United and Barnsley and a creditable draw with Palace. Indeed, their home form is all they have, having picked up 26 of their 29 league points at home from 18 league games.

Andy Thorn, who has only recently recovered from a virus himself has to decide if he wants to recall Sammy Clingan to the starting lineup or keep the faith with Man Utd loanee Olly Norwood; Cody McDonald will also be pushing for a start having got the equaliser against Palace in midweek. Coventry should also be featuring Man City starlet Alex Nimely and former Blues player Gary McSheffrey.

Birmingham City FC

Blues are able to welcome back a host of player for the short trip to the Ricoh; Erik Huseklepp, Andros Townsend and Peter Ramage who all missed the Chelsea game due to eligibility issues can be added to the squad and may be joined by Keith Fahey and Steven Caldwell should they pass late fitness tests; Stephen Carr and David Murphy both miss out due to injury and thus I think Ramage will play right back and Spector left; it’ll be interesting to see if Blues put a defender on the bench should Caldwell miss out.

I suspect if Fahey is fit Mutch will probably miss out; if the Irishman doesn’t make it there is a chance Gomis could be paired with N’Daw in the middle. Zigic will have given Hughton food for thought after a fairly good performance against Chelsea but I suspect the gaffer may go with the fresher pairing of Huseklepp and King; particularly as Huseklepp can happily play a withdrawn role in a 4-2-3-1. Wade Elliott is the other player who is massively pushing for a start after a scintillating performance in midweek.

This is a game that Blues need to win but I don’t think that they will; Coventry are fairly decent at home and in front of a large crowd (albeit with 5000 plus Brummies) I think they may have enough to keep Birmingham City out. Blues will need to be at their creative best for longer than just the last ten minutes whilst also cutting out the silly mistakes which has cost them points in recent weeks. This is a big game for Blues and it’s going to have a big bearing on what we’re looking at as the season draws to a close.

Tags: Andros Townsend, David Murphy, Erik Huseklepp, Guirane N'aw, Jordon Mutch, Keith Fahey, Morgaro Gomis, Nikola Zigic, Peter Ramage, Stephen Carr, Steven Caldwell, Wade Elliott