Birmingham City will today anxiously await news of Andy Cole's fitness after he had to sit out what should have been his debut.

Cole, signed on loan from Portsmouth for the rest of the season 11 days ago, was sidelined with hamstring trouble for yesterday's 3-0 home win over Coventry City. He is due to undergo a scan today to determine the extent of any damage.

In the light of reports claiming that the injury might be worse than feared, Blues boss Steve Bruce was last night insistent that 35-year-old Cole was left out purely for precautionary reasons, having felt a "twinge" after overdoing it in training earlier in the week.

"I've got to look at myself really," said Bruce. "The one thing we do in training at this club is work hard, perhaps too hard on this occasion and maybe I've asked too much of him at his age.

"He came to me on Tuesday and said he hadn't trained like that for years and that he felt a bit sore afterwards. And then on Friday he said he felt a twinge.

"The last thing we wanted to do was risk him with still six or seven games left after this one as we all know, if it goes, then it's end of his season. But we expect to get some scan results tomorrow (Monday) and just hope it throws up nothing serious."

Even with Cole sidelined, Bruce still paid tribute to the vastly experienced former England striker for his inspiring effect off the pitch.

"The lad's devastated because he couldn't take part," said Bruce. "But he still showed the impact he can have even without being on the pitch.

"He was in the dressing room before the game, at half-time and again at full-time. And I saw him speaking to Cameron Jerome and DJ Campbell at half time, which is great, as our young lads look up to Andy Cole."

Whatever Cole said to Campbell cannot have done any harm, given the way the Blues 'Supersub' left the bench to seal a 3-0 win over a poor Sky Blues side with a sharply-taken second-half double.

Having moved Rowan Vine to a wide left role to stand in for top scorer Gary McSheffrey, if Cole is fit, then, with McSheffrey due to return after suspension, Campbell's two goals leave Bruce with a nice congestion problem to have up front for Saturday's home date with struggling Burnley. But he also points out that, if Cole's injury does prove serious and, if Vine had been booked yesterday, then the outlook might have been a bit different.

"People can say I've got six strikers," said Bruce. "And that is quite an array.

"But Rowan's on nine yellows and, with Coley, all of a sudden you can be down to three or four. But that's still a better position than last year when I couldn't field an XI."

Even without Cole, Blues were still strong enough to hoist themselves back into the Championship's top two, after being forced to play a day later than their rivals for the fourth time in the last seven competitive weekends.

"It seems to have been like that for months," said Bruce. "We've not a had home game on a Saturday afternoon since December and we're always playing catch-up.

"That always makes it difficult. But we put in one of our best performances of the season.

"It should have been all over in the first half with the chances we've had and I thought if we'd got a second we'd run away with it. But, in the end, we put in a real good shift and made it more comfortable than I thought it would be at the start.

"I was driving back from Wolves on Saturday with Eric Black listening to the other results — so don't believe all that bull about us not looking at how everyone else has gone on — and we didn't speak a word when we heard Derby and Sunderland had won again.

"But we've got ourselves in a good position going into the Easter weekend and that's usually a big turnaround in any season. And it's still in our own hands."

Dejected Coventry manager Iain Dowie found it hard to explain his first defeat as Sky Blues boss on the back of their previously unbeaten six-game run.

"We didn't come out of the traps," he said. "We'd set standards for ourselves and we dropped them.

"But people were waxing lyrical about this group of players when they took us free from a relegation fight. And, as ever, you learn a lot from a defeat. And, having put one run together, I'd like us to compile another to be up near the top of the table by the end of the season."

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