English Premier League roundup: Birmingham City, Blackburn Rovers
BIRMINGHAM CITY
Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish is extremely delighted over the current form of Nikola Zigic and believes that the Serb has finally started to convert into a world class player.
The tallest player in the Premier League managed to score the winner against West Ham United, which led the side finally climbing out of the relegation zone. The player made good use of his height and the cross from Sebastian Larsson was
nodded home from close range. Since his arrival from La Liga side Valencia in the summer, Zigic had not been able to cope with the English style of play and it seemed that the six million pounds paid for him were too much. However, the Serbian had scored in
back-to-back games for Birmingham and was always a threat to West Ham United defence.
The manager believed that Zigic had really upped his game level and could adapt to the English style of play. “He's beginning to hold his own. He was pushed in the back for the goal but managed to stay firm and get his head on it. He is
making his mark and has been powerful for us in three of the last four games," stated the manager.
Many big names, including the likes of Diego Forlan, Andrey Shevchenko and Hernan Crespo had failed to impress in England, despite being top quality players elsewhere. Zigic now has a tough task ahead of him, as he would have to keep scoring,
otherwise he would become a new addition to the long list of strikers who failed to live up to their hype.
BLACKBURN ROVERS
Blackburn Rovers are failing to find their ground in the English Premier League in the new year, as their recent 4-3 loss to Wigan Athletic was their third consecutive loss in the league. Manager Steve Kean was furious over his side’s
lack of putting the opposition away when they had the chance to. Blackburn blew away their early lead and gave relegation-threatened Wigan too much room. The manager stated that they made a lively start to the game and produced a couple of chances even after
they had scored the first goal. Kean, however, stated that he was frustrated over the fact that his side scored three times in an away fixture but still couldn’t get a point.
“I think it was going to be about the team who made the least amount of mistakes on a tricky afternoon and fair play to Wigan, they got a bit of momentum and they pushed us. But I thought that we had shown good character to come back,"
stated the Blackburn manager.