Birmingham boss Alex McLeish: “We were very short in a lot of departments."

Jan 7 2008 by Dougie Thomson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

BIRMINGHAM boss Alex McLeish admitted: “We were very short in a lot of departments. A lot of the lads were well below their level."

“We gave the players instructions of what they could expect from Huddersfield and what they needed to do to counter them.

“But when they go over that white line, they have to put them into practice.

“We’ll be looking at some bad headlines now, but we deserve them because it was a pretty insipid performance.

“Credit to Huddersfield. They looked up for it and showed better composure on the day.”

The former Scotland boss, who was taking charge of Brum for the eighth time since he succeeded ex-Town manager Steve Bruce at St Andrews, added: “It would have been nice to have had a cup run, but the Premier League is the priority for us.

“We will now have to pick ourselves up very quickly.”

Brum, who are 16th and just two points above the drop zone, visit Arsenal on Saturday.

And McLeish could have beefed up his squad by then, explaining: “We need to add some new faces.

“We’ve thrown a few seeds down and we’ll see what develops.”