Birmingham City manager Alex McLeish is urging his strikers to end their goal drought ahead of tomorrow’s Barclays Premier League clash with bottom-placed Derby at St Andrew's.

Birmingham have managed to hit the target only twice in their last five Premier League games and have been guilty of failing to convert some gilt-edged opportunities.

The 2-0 defeat at fellow strugglers Sunderland on Tuesday left them out of the bottom three only on goal difference.

McLeish wants a repeat of the performance by Blues in their last home game when they were unfortunate to suffer a single goal reversal against Chelsea.

McLeish said: "The Derby game takes on great significance, of course it does, but there are 14 games to go, 42 points to play for, and we’ve got to get as many as we can - and as quickly as we can.

"Points mean everything for clubs like us and the clubs around us. We have got to be at the level we were against Chelsea in our last home game.

"Overall our work-rate has been fantastic but we are looking for a little bit of inspiration in front of goal.

"We have to keep the door shut at the back and defend as well as we did against gigantic teams we have played in the league recently, and then it gives the boys the other end the chance of doing something.

"If we don’t lose goals, we are not going to lose games, but it would be nice if we could cause some problems at the other end."

McLeish added: "That level of performance against Chelsea would keep us up. The boys showed maturity in those huge games we have played recently and we need to carry that on now. The players have to be playing out of their skin.

"But we definitely have to be getting the ball in the back of the net and it gives us a much better chance and takes the pressure off the back players.

"We just quite haven’t had that killer touch. We have a lot of strikers at our disposal and I am looking for someone to light the touch paper."

James McFadden is poised to make his full home debut but McLeish has to decide whether to bring in full-back David Murphy for the first time after his move from Hibernian a week ago.