Birmingham City head for the capital on Tuesday to take on Queens Park Rangers in their latest Championship fixture
Birmingham City’s Tomoki Iwata
Birmingham City will look to exorcise their away day demons against Queens Park Rangers at Loftus Road on Tuesday night.
Blues have lost six of their 10 away matches in the Championship and slipped up 3-1 at Southampton at the weekend.
A miserable record on the road is currently undermining Blues’ sterling home form and manager Chris Davies knows that an improvement is needed.
“From our point of view, we’re trying to approach the game in the right way. You can see that overall we haven’t had an away performance that has been abject,” Davies said. “We’ve just had slow starts and it’s cost us.”
Blues have conceded the first goal in nine of their 10 away games – and eight of those strikes have come in the first half.
They can’t give a QPR side who have won their last two at home, scoring six goals in the process, an early leg up.
This feels like a game where Davies can justify making changes to his side.
There were signs at Southampton that Tomoki Iwata might be needed back in midfield, which would mean Bright Osayi-Samuel returning at right-back.
Osayi-Samuel could play the position in a slightly more orthodox manner to help shore up Blues’ leaky defence on the road.
Jack Robinson is the obvious choice to replace Alex Cochrane at left-back if he can’t shake off his injury.
Restoring Iwata to midfield doesn’t necessarily mean that one of Tommy Doyle or Paik Seung-ho has to be benched.
Davies played all three from the start in Blues’ last away day success at Preston with Paik slightly advanced. Why not try something that has worked before?
Jay Stansfield could move up front to provide Blues with the pressing power that Marvin Ducksch can’t.
Demarai Gray is a must on the left but you couldn’t blame Davies for giving Patrick Roberts a breather before the festive fixture list goes into overdrive.
Keshi Anderson and Lewis Koumas are Davies’ reserves out wide, with the former most likely based on the order they are usually introduced as substitutes.
Our suggested Blues XI for QPR…
(4-2-3-1): Beadle; Osayi-Samuel, Neumann, Klarer, Robinson; Iwata, Doyle; Anderson, Paik, Gray; Stansfield
What should Davies do? Have your say in the comments HERE
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