Blues beat Blackburn Rovers and Andy Munro can stop worrying.
This was an excellent win against a Blackburn side so loaded with talent they were able to leave Brereton Diaz and Bradley Dack, two players that would walk into almost any of the other Championship sides, on the bench.
In fairness to the opposition, backed by some impressive support, they played the more cohesive football without working John Ruddy too much in the first half. In contrast Blues, in a number of swift counterattacks, were unlucky not to open the scoring, working the Rovers keeper and hitting the woodwork.
However, in the second period things looked a bit ominous early on as Rovers were much quicker out of the blocks but Blues worked their way back in with Krystian Bielik and Alfie Chang in the engine room. This released Tahith Chong and Reda Khdra to attack down the flanks and it was the latter who spectacularly hammered home to put Blues in the lead. Mention should be made of yet another towering and robust display from the Juke and alongside him the pace and trickery of George Hall illustrating why he is attracting so much interest from the Premiership.
With Rovers still well in the hunt for the play-offs, it was no surprise to see us under the cosh in the second period of the second half but Blues held firm with Ruddy pulling off a couple of excellent saves and in front of him Auton Trusty, Marc Roberts and Kevin Long outstanding. In the latter case, I have probably eaten enough hats to open a milliner’s shop following a string of impressive performances after a much maligned shaky start.
If I were to be critical then our first two subs added nothing to the party with a lacklustre Juninho Bacuna (excusable given his international duties) and Scott Hogan (not excusable) never getting into it. Still, it would be unfair to dwell too much on the negatives when there were plenty of positives and one win from the last half a dozen games should see us comfortably home and hosed.