Birmingham’s Premier League future may not be secure for this season even if they beat Wolves (19/5 to win – match coupon) this afternoon and move closer to the magical 40-point mark.
That is the opinion of Birmingham (5/6 to win, draw 9/4 – match coupon) boss Alex McLeish, who sees his side sit in eighth place at this point in time, with victory today set to take them to 37 points.
It is commonly thought that 40 points is the safety target to aim for, but McLeish is not looking that far ahead and admitted he can remember when 42 and 39 points has been enough to see teams relegated in the past.
“You would say with the way things are at the moment we would be safe, no danger but I don’t think we can afford to look too far ahead,” said the Scottish manager.
“The players are aware of it but I’m positive they won’t get complacent. There’s 45 points left to play for and we’d like to get as many as we can.”
Birmingham (80/1 to finish top of Premier League without big 4) recently went on a 15-game unbeaten run and McLeish is looking to kick start another similar run by naming the same starting 11 for the 12th Premier League game in a row.
Wolves (10/11 for relegation) boss Mick McCarthy is expected to bring Marcus Hahnemann back into the team, while Kevin Doyle, Matt Jarvis and Stephen Ward are all in contention after recovering from injuries.
