Gary Rowett press conference notes: Birmingham City’s non-negotiables

Normally, you wouldn’t lose your club’s divisional status if you lost to the team at the top of the division. At the conclusion of the season, Stephy Mavididi’s goal in the closing minutes won’t have determined the fate of the Blues, even though it has obviously become a poor habit in recent weeks, especially away from home.
Supporters of the Blues both at home and away will have had to swallow the bitter pill after the late loss at Leicester, as well as at Queens Park Rangers, Ipswich Town, Millwall, and West Bromwich Albion. Then there was the FA Cup goal against Hull City and the heartbreaking late comeback from Ipswich at St Andrew’s that signalled the end of Wayne Rooney’s unfortunate career.

The result of those late goals will have played a major role if Blues, who are currently in the bottom three before playing twice in four days on home ground this week, do fall into League One. For the time being, Rowett is viewing things differently. While he was encouraged by some aspects of Blues’ performance against Leicester, it is evident that allowing opponents to consistently break hearts at the end of the game is a habit that needs to be broken.

“It’s imperative that you break the habit,” Rowett said to BirminghamLive. “Recognising it and taking action are the only ways to escape it. Some of those incidents and the historical events that have occurred throughout the season, but I can attempt to focus on the players’ strengths because we have some excellent players.

“We’ve got players who can step up. I take as an example someone like Dion Sanderson, who over the last two or three games has really raised his performance and started to step up and defend with real aggression. I could say the same about a number of others, but they have to go and do it when it matters and do it in the 87th minute, the 90th minute, the 1st minute. The players know that. That’s not me telling them anything they don’t know.

“We have to be better in those moments or those moments cost you. The Championship is a brutal league. You can be absolutely astonishing, you can make 850 passes, it can be 0-0 and you can concede two late goals from set-pieces and everything goes out of the window. There are so many different facets and parts to the game which every good team has to manage. Certainly, I believe we have the capabilities to do it. Now we have to do it.”

There are fewer managers working in the Championship who are better qualified than Rowett to judge and measure, certainly when it extends to experience of the league and all that it entails. This is a man who, despite being only 50, has 367 Championship matches as a manager under his belt, having first been granted an opportunity by Blues back in late 2014. During those years, Blues proved particularly difficult to overcome in their own postcode.

At Millwall, where Rowett took charge of just shy of 200 matches – the vast majority of them being Championship games – the New Den became a particularly difficult place for opposing clubs to visit and negotiate. Rowett won’t get carried away with the idea that this St Andrew’s double header, against Cardiff and then Coventry City, is a make or break week in Blues’ season, but he recognises the unquestionable advantage supporters can offer.

“I’m loathed to say whether it’s a make or break week, because should we not win either of our games and nobody else around us wins any of their games, the next week becomes make or break,” he added. “Certainly it’s important, but at this stage of the season every game is. The fact that there are two home games, you have to capitalise on those moments and opportunities.

“There comes a point that if you don’t capitalise, then you are where you are deservedly. I have the belief that the players will go and perform, I’ve got the belief and I’ve seen how they can perform against Preston. We’re going to have to do it again, with a slightly different game plan, a different way of doing it, but ultimately the same methods and non-negotiables – we’re going to have to run, work hard and play with intensity, drive and desire.”