Birmingham City head to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday looking up, not down.

A much needed home victory over Bristol City kept Blues in 18th place in the Championship.

But they are only five points away from Rovers, who are in the play-off zone.

Blues are now seven points clear of the bottom three.

The league is so tight this season, and looks likely to remain so throughout.

A succession of wins can catapult you forwards.

Crystal Palace have gone top of the pile and they were 23rd in September.

Veteran campaigner Paul Robinson remains convinced that Blues have it within them to mount a promotion push.

“What I have seen in the dressing room and on the training pitch, my view is still 100 per cent – the lads we have got in there are easily capable of getting promoted,” the defender stated.

“The quality in that dressing room, from the younger players to the experienced players, is unbelievable.

“And you don’t get that at a lot of clubs but we have got it.

“And it is down to us now. It’s not the manager. The manager picks the team and the team that goes out on the pitch has to perform.

“It’s down to the players who go out and wear that shirt. They have got to go out and wear it with pride and start picking up results to get us promoted. It’s about consistency.”

Blues have not won back-to-back games all season.

That is something they will try to put right at Ewood Park.

And when it looks as if they have turned the proverbial corner, they go backwards.

Lee Clark is clearly as frustrated as the next man.

And he has revealed that when it comes to St Andrew’s matches, he will look carefully at the team and not necessarily what has gone on before. “I love continuity, I like getting confidence in the players, playing them week in, week out so they get relationships going,” said the manager before Tuesday night.

“But, you know, in that remit you have got to deliver results.

“Obviously, for the fourth game at home, we haven’t produced a winning performance.

“So there are places up for grabs.

“What the lads who come in have to do is deliver a performance. What it’s saying to me is that no matter what happens on the road, in terms of results, I might have to look to change even a winning team when we come back home.

“That’s twice now we’ve gone away from home and produced good performances – Brighton, and Cardiff, although I know we lost there – and I kept faith with the group and we didn’t do it against Huddersfield.

“Then we had a good week – Leicester, Millwall and Leeds – and delivered performances and results, the players got another opportunity but then we had a flat half against Ipswich.

“So what I am trying to say now is that the players have put me in a position where that may have to change, that thought process.”

Clark got the response he was after against the Robins.

Nikola Zigic and Chris Burke – who opened the scoring – started and played hugely significant parts.

And this time, from the first whistle to last, Blues were at it and kept the tempo going.

Clark said: “We did it from start to finish.

“I thought we played some excellent stuff at times and I was just a little bit disappointed that we didn’t win by four or five to give the crowd a real show in terms of goalscoring performance.

“That’s not being disrespectful to Bristol City, but we were that dominant.

“Everyone was right at it, there were no weak links. Now we have got to try and get back to back wins.”